LogFAQs > #964426959

We would prone them because being on your stomach helps your lungs expand further. At the facility I worked at the longest they didn't have functional hoyer lifts on the ceiling so we would gather a group of 7 people, roll them up into a sheet and physically flip them from their back to stomach. Most of these people weighed over 250lbs, some as high as 400, 500lbs. Their oxygen sat and ABG would improve on their stomachs but would usually go back to being crappy on their back. You had to flip them at least every 12 hours.

They would have a central venous line usually running a minimum of 4 different IV drugs or fluids, the ventilator in their throat, and an oral pharyngeal tube going to their stomach to give them nutrition and oral meds, a foley catheter for their urine and if they weren't constipated for days and days, a tube up their butt to collect their feces.

Eventually blood clots start to become a real problem, then their kidneys start to fail and it all starts to go downhill until they are on CRRT but it usually isn't enough. Their lungs are scarred beyond repair after weeks of being on the vent and COVID wrecking their lungs that even if they do survive, it's months and months of recovery just to be able to walk a few feet with supplemental oxygen.

The average stay for a patient was about 2-3 weeks until they either died, got off the ventilator and could be downgraded, or they got a tracheostomy and a PEG tube (feeding tube going directly to their stomach) and sent to a LTAC where they may be living on vent support the rest of their lives.

I've had to counsel a guys son in his 30s on how we will transition his father to comfort care (removing the vent and stopping all meds other than morphine) with the phone wedged between my shoulder and cheek as I am putting a 32 year old former EMT into a body bag after he got put on comfort care earlier that day too.