She is on a ventilator, she has copd. She's been in the hospital since Jan 3 2016 and and off the vent a total of 6 days. 3 days each time then her carbon dioxide levels spiked and she had to be intubated. She now has a trach. She's not weaning off the vent well:( she's in a nursing home/rehab now over an hour away from her family and the place is awful. Shes been in this place for a little over a week now. I just can't see her laying there day in and day out when she could be home with her family.
We used 2 of them back in 2003 and 2004 specifically for vent weaning and eventually decannulation from a trach.
I'm surprised someone didn't recommend this directly from the hospital; that would have been the logical choice instead of going to rehab. The long term care hospitals have staff just like a hospital does, a much higher level of staff than any nursing home would have.
Vent weaning requires a respiratory therapist. Select Specialty had them, as did the rehab facility I eventually chose when the time was appropriate.
Eventually enough progress was made to begin vent weaning. In 2004 there were only 13 rehab homes in the whole state of Michigan that had the capability to undertake vent weaning. I interviewed and visited 3, one of which was a dump, another which was beautiful and top notch, but inadvertently represented it could handle vent weaning but couldn't.
The one I chose was a Heartland facility in Ann Arbor and was the best rehab place I've ever seen. The staff was extraordinarily supportive and responsive; the place was beautiful.
Taking care of someone with a trach requires some special medical training.
Don't even consider bringing her home without first addressing whether or not you can find training for management of a tracheostomy.
Once you bring her home your home care company will set you up with the vent ( a simpler version of the one at the hospital) and the suction system. You will also need to look into a generator for power in the event of an emergency. And she will need to have no oxygen requirements, as homes are not set up to provide extra oxygen, and tanks and portable systems can not normaly be available for the majority of us. But if it's her CO2 levels and not her sat that is the problem this is doable.AND the trach needs to be cleaned every 8 hours or so. It's a big responsibity,, and a full time job. Good luck!
I could never have done the suctioning; it was hard for me to just watch the therapist do it.
As to the oxygen issue, when Dad came home he had been decannulated, but we also had a concentrator as well as the portable tanks. Would that have been incompatible with a trach in a home environment?
Now the oxygen supplier we have has provided not only the stationary concentrator but a portable concentrator as well. It looks like a large lunch bucket, operates on lithium ion batteries and we take it wherever we go. It's a lot easier than the big tanks.
The lithium ion batteries lose about 10% of a charge each day, so I suspect they're old, but I also bought a car charger so I can charge them up if we have a ways to travel.
Interesting.
For another analogy, I'm thinking that it's kind of like my using a portable air compressor connected to the lighter in the car to pump up a flat tire, vs. the commercial air compressors in dealerships or even at gas stations. It generally takes 1/2 hour for me to pump up a flat tire, whereas the commercial ones can do it in minutes.
Now it does make sense that the home equipment couldn't possibly have the capacity the commercial medical equipment has. And the ventilators are major pieces of equipment; I'm visualizing the ones Dad was on and they definitely weren't home variety equipment.
Thanks for taking the time to explain.
And again thanks for having chosen such a necessary and hopefully rewarding occupation.