- Joined
- Jan 21, 2009
- Messages
- 65,981
- Reaction score
- 23,408
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
Sadly, if the person does not die of coronavirus....smoking will likely eventually contribute to their premature death. I am an ICU RN and most of our patients were smokers. (that will depend on the type of ICU you work in)If smoking did not directly cause their death, it made the process of weaning from the ventilator more challenging and frankly torturous.
Hopefully nobody will take up smoking to save them from covid.:shock:
I agree.
Most people don't understand the inherent risks of being on a ventilator. When I was experiencing an unexpected shortness of breath after falling for no apparent reason, the person with was the supervisor of an Alzheimer's unit. Called an ambulance, whether I wanted one or not. I thought I was just out of breath. Heart attack. That small hospital ER doctor ordered I be immediately transported to a major hospital an hour away. There, after a fast cath-exam, a surgeon was direct and to the point: "We do surgery now or you will die. Your chance of survival is 50/50." My response was also summary and immediate - 2 words: "Do it." Open heart surgery.
The relevancy is that nurse stuck with me and on top of it stating she was doing so for exactly one reason - to make sure they get me off the ventilator ASAP after surgery, explaining the longer a person is on a ventilator, the higher the odds their lungs won't start back up operating on their own - meaning on a ventilator for the rest of the person's likely short life. It's like anesthetics. Even for minor surgery, anesthetics will kill a small percentage of patients. I gather it is that way for ventilators too - but you know more about it than I do.