Intubated

“This is the air I breathe

This is the air I breathe

Your Holy Presence, living in me…”

- Darlene Zschech (Hillsongs)

A few days ago we admitted a 54 year old female complaining of generalized body weakness, easy fatigability, and pallor. She was conscious and coherent, responding to the queries of her attending physician. I thought nothing special about her, probably just a case of iron-deficiency anemia.

Yesterday, I even talked to her in the morning, asking how she was. She still had body weakness although she was gaining some color after several transfusions of fresh whole blood.

Suddenly, in the afternoon she had changes in sensorium, to the point that her respiratory function stopped. She was eventually intubated. Her stat cranial CT scan showed massive bleed inside her brain, causing a part of her brain which contains the respiratory center to herniate down to the foramen magnum, thus the cessation of breathing. Before she was hooked to a mechanical ventilator I was holding the ambubag—her only means of respiration. Her children cannot help but cry because of the sudden deterioration of their mom. Silently, I said a little prayer for the family, and for her.

There she was, unconscious—dependent to the machine that was mechanically infusing air to her lungs.