A couple of weeks ago, I took care of a patient who was admitted in the hospital for shortness of breath. She has COPD (CDOP if you’re obsessive-compulsive), a disease due to smoking, and went into acute respiratory failure.
The patient was really struggling to breathe thus the Emergency Room doctor placed her on a non-invasive positive pressure ventilator (NIPPV), a device similar to CPAP used by people with sleep apnea, to provide assistance in her respiration. She was then transferred to our ICU.
On the first day that I rounded on her she was still on the NIPPV and unable to talk much, as it was almost impossible to talk with that mask on, for it’s like having a blower in your face. I would not be able to hear her clearly anyway even if she wants to speak. Though I examined her thoroughly, I limited my history-taking to questions she can answer by yes or no.
The next day she was much better and we have weaned her off the NIPPV. She was sitting in a chair, breathing much easier and looking comfortable.
I pulled up a chair and sat beside her and talked. She admits she has been diagnosed with COPD for years, and has even been on oxygen at home. But sadly to say she continues to smoke. Damn cigarettes! I guess old habit never die.
I told her that it was vital that she quit smoking. Yet in the back of my mind, she has done quite good despite of her bad habits, for she was 84 years old after all, and she still lives independently, all by herself.
Then when I asked her how can I help her quit smoking, she relayed to me that she smoke because she was stressed out.
What? She was eighty-four years old and still stressed out? She should be relaxing and enjoying life, or whatever is left of it, at this age.
That was when she told me that she has not gotten over the death of her husband, whom she was married for sixty-one years. He died three years ago. I suppose the heartbreak never heals when you lose somebody you love and lived with, for that long.
If we only peel off our prejudgment and peer behind the puff of cigarette smoke, we will learn that these people are hurting inside.
Then she said that she was also worried about somebody she knew longer than her husband. She was worried about her mother.
Her mother? What?!!!
Wait a minute, was my patient confused? Too much medications maybe? Was she having ICU delirium? Or does she have the beginning of dementia perhaps?
But as I talked to her more, I ascertained that she was very lucid and of clear mind. She was indeed worried and stressed out about her mother, who has been in and out of the hospital for the past several months.
Her mother was 103 years old!
I came out of the ICU room with a smile. I was ever so determined to help my patient get well. And maybe if I can get her to relax and convince her to quit smoking, she will live more than 103.
view from the hospital’s corridor
(photo taken with an iPhone)
