{"id":69969,"date":"2023-05-17T11:54:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T17:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=69969"},"modified":"2023-05-31T12:14:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T18:14:19","slug":"how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/","title":{"rendered":"How you can help when your loved one is in a coma in the ICU"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Michael
Michael Delaney and his wife, Bonnie, hang out with their dog, Louie, in the living room of their Colorado Springs home. In the picture frame is Luca, their grandson. Photo by Chuck Bigger, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a digital picture frame, the photos of Michael Delaney\u2019s life scrolled by, one by one, constructing a story of love.<\/p>\n

The photos captured the rewards of a 63-year-old life that had, to this point, been well lived. There was Bonnie, his wife of 37 years and a librarian at a local elementary school. His children, Michael and Jada; daughter-in-law, Dakota; and their new grandchild, Luca, who is 8 months old.<\/p>\n

The photos showed Michael and Bonnie hiking near Cottonwood Pass and fishing in Lost Lake and one of Louie, a Jack Russell terrier mix, who had been saved from a rescue in Louisiana. In the photo, Louie\u2019s looking out the window of their Colorado Springs home, waiting for the mailman to come by with a treat.<\/p>\n

Making a connection, one photo at a time<\/h2>\n

The digital picture frame arrived at Michael\u2019s bedside on St. Patrick\u2019s Day, a day when Michael normally would be enjoying a black and tan. After two days at Grandview Hospital<\/a>, Michael had to be taken to Memorial Hospital Central<\/a>\u2019s ICU.<\/p>\n

Out of the blue, Michael and Bonnie\u2019s world had been turned upside down. Michael, a hearty and healthy project manager for Colorado Springs Utilities, had started to cough up blood and experience severe body aches.<\/p>\n

At Memorial, they met Dr. Christopher Merrick<\/a>, a pulmonologist who had cared for countless patients with COVID-19 at UCHealth. After his initial assessment, Merrick looked at Michael and said: \u201cYou\u2019re very sick. We will need to intubate you.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Michael said, \u201cDo what you need to do.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Merrick suspected Michael might have ANCA vasculitis<\/a>, an autoimmune disease in which antibodies attack the lungs and kidneys, but he didn\u2019t have confirmation. Lab work had to be sent out of state, and it would be three days before Merrick would know for certain.<\/p>\n

\"\"
When Michael Delaney, her husband of 37 years, fell gravely ill and needed care in the ICU at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, Bonnie Delaney did everything she could to ensure her husband would heal from a dangerous disease. Photo by Chuck Bigger, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But if Merrick didn\u2019t begin aggressive treatment, Michael could have died.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of these hard scenarios, and this is when you really appreciate the courage of people,\u2019\u2019 Merrick said. \u201cWe put Michael on the ventilator because he was coughing up too much blood, and his lungs were filling up with blood. He was literally drowning in his own blood, so the only way to save him while the medications were having their effects was to put him on the ventilator.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

In addition, Merrick asked for help from Dr. Mario Fadila<\/a>, a pulmonologist, and they started Michael on plasma exchange, a treatment that involved pulling blood from Michael\u2019s body, filtering out antibodies that were causing destruction and returning cleansed blood to his body. Merrick also gave Michael steroids and a chemotherapy-type drug called Rituxan.<\/p>\n

Reaching out to family for help<\/h2>\n

Recognizing that she could not go through the emotional turmoil of Michael\u2019s health crisis alone, Bonnie called one of Michael\u2019s sisters, who came to Colorado Springs from Denver. Their son and daughter flew into Colorado Springs, along with family from throughout the country.<\/p>\n

On March 16, the first day in the ICU, Bonnie turned to one of the nurses in the ICU and asked: \u201cWhat do I do? How can I help?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The nurse told Bonnie that even though Michael was sedated, she should talk to him and have normal, everyday conversation. She should play music, and if she had any photographs that she could bring in, that could help too.<\/p>\n

That St. Patrick\u2019s Day, Bonnie placed the frame at the side of Michael\u2019s bed, and it became a catalyst for conversation and kindness. The nurses who cared for Michael wanted to know all about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could not speak for himself or advocate for himself, so any new nurse that came in, I would introduce us as a family, and I would tell them about Michael and how wonderful he is,\u2019\u2019 Bonnie said. \u201cAnd I would say: \u2018This is a great guy, and we need to take great care of him. He\u2019s a carpenter and fly fisherman; he has a great circle of friends.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted them to know him as a person and not just someone who was lying there. He could not speak for himself.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Michael hadn\u2019t done anything careless or reckless to get himself in this situation. He didn\u2019t smoke or drink to excess, and he didn\u2019t have a case of bad genes. The culprit was nothing other than plain bad luck.<\/p>\n

To her credit, Bonnie followed the advice of the nurse. Every day, she talked to Michael as if he were sitting next to her on their living room couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took Louie out for a walk today,\u2019\u2019 she told him. \u201cHe did his regular poop in front of so-and-so\u2019s house, and he chased squirrels and rabbits.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Wearin’ of the green<\/h2>\n

On St. Patrick\u2019s Day, Michael\u2019s sister reminded Bonnie that Michael would need to have something green on, as has always been the tradition.<\/p>\n

The two women saw green paper shamrocks hanging from above the counter in a hospital coffee shop. Bonnie told the woman behind the counter that her husband was Irish, a patient in the ICU, and they were looking for something green. The clerk encouraged the women to take the shamrocks, and they did. They went back to the ICU and lay the paper shamrocks, the symbol of Ireland, across his bed.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s family rallied, as did Michael himself. Results of the lab tests that had been sent out of state came back; Michael indeed had ANCA vasculitis, just as Merrick had suspected. Even though Michael was heavily sedated, Bonnie and the nurses believed that Michael still had a level of consciousness.<\/p>\n

On Day 3 in the ICU, the lights in Michael\u2019s room were especially bright. Bonnie asked the nurse, Jay, if they might be too bright, and Michael gestured with his hands and shook his head.<\/p>\n

Bonnie also asked Michael, \u201cWould you like to listen to music?\u2019\u2019 And he\u2019d nod his head, yes or no. When Michael approved, Bonnie would play Warren Zevon; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and the late, great John Prine.<\/p>\n

After eight days under heavy sedation, Michael awakened on March 23, 2023.<\/p>\n

\"Michael
While Michael was in the ICU at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, Bonnie brought in a digital picture frame to ‘humanize’ her husband to nurses who were caring for him. Photo by Chuck Bigger, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to wake up and figure out \u2018What the heck is going on?\u2019 I\u2019ve got the tube in my throat, and I\u2019m just trying to figure out what\u2019s going on, and I look up at the nurse\u2019s board, and I see the 23rd<\/sup>, and I\u2019m like, \u2018What the heck happened to the last week?\u2019 They\u2019re trying to explain it to me, and I\u2019m not entirely understanding. It took me a few days to finally wake up to process what was going on.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The next day, two physical therapists came to Michael\u2019s ICU room, and one said, \u201cLet\u2019s see if we can get you to stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael had always been strong. He\u2019s a cabinet maker, a do-it-yourselfer who remodeled his own kitchen and did his own landscaping, shoveling tons of rock, breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey balanced me, and I was able to stand up on my own two legs, not for very long — only for a very short time. Then they came in the next day with a walker, and I walked around my bed. And then, the next day, I walked to the edge of my room. And then the next day, I was out in the ward with a walker.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Just getting out of bed for the first time left Michael \u201c100% wrung out,\u2019\u2019 but he was determined to grow stronger for himself and as a way to say thank you to his caregivers.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt so grateful to be able to walk around that ward and give these people a win because I bet they don\u2019t get a lot of those wins, like really good stories. And they were as excited for me as I was for myself,\u2019\u2019 Michael said.<\/p>\n

After emerging from the medically induced coma, Michael listened as Bonnie told him about the nurses who had taken care of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had nurses that would talk to me every night when they were rolling me over to try to keep me from getting bed sores and such,\u2019\u2019 Michael said. \u201cAlthough I didn\u2019t really get a chance to talk to them, they were so instrumental. Megan was one of the nighttime nurses, and Kelsey was a respiratory therapist, and my wife said that every time she would come in in the evening and if my tube wasn\u2019t perfectly straight or the tape was bound up, she\u2019d get upset and redo everything and make sure everything was just right, the way it was supposed to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she would talk to my wife, and she would talk to my family, and she would explain what she was doing and that made it made it so much easier on my family. I had Jessica and Karla for my day nurses after I came out of sedation, and they did so much for my family and me, and a nurse named Maddie, who was 23 years old and from Pueblo.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she was one of my ICU nurses, and she was there for four days straight, and she wanted to continue to be my nurse because of my family. And she was so compassionate. I didn\u2019t get the chance to meet her until days after, when I was getting ready to go into the other ward, and she made a point of coming into my room and introducing herself.\u00a0 She told me she would come into my room, and she would just watch me, and she would watch my family on the picture frame. And she said she grew this great connection between my family and me, and who and what we are.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

A few weeks after Michael went home from the hospital, he had a follow-up appointment with Merrick. Michael walked into the doctor\u2019s office with no cane, no walker, no oxygen tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked like a million bucks,\u2019\u2019 Merrick said.<\/p>\n

For a doctor and nurses in the ICU who had seen so many people die during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing Michael doing so well was overwhelmingly gratifying.<\/p>\n

During his appointment, Michael went out of his way to thank his nurses for what they had done for him.<\/p>\n

The digital picture frame with the photos is now back on the counter in the kitchen of the couple\u2019s home. The couple will be adding more pictures of their hikes and fishing trips.<\/p>\n

Michael and Bonnie are home watching Louie look out the window for the mailman. They are taking him for his daily walk, watching him chase the squirrels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a digital picture frame, the photos of Michael Delaney\u2019s life scrolled by, one by one, constructing a story of love. The photos captured the rewards of a 63-year-old life that had, to this point, been well lived. There was Bonnie, his wife of 37 years and a librarian at a local elementary school. His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":69973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[267,3357,21],"class_list":["post-69969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-intensive-care-unit","tag-lung-and-respiratory-care-pulmonology","tag-southern-colorado"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to help when a loved one is in a coma in the ICU - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When her husband landed in the ICU with ANCA vasculitis, Bonnie Delaney brought in a digital picture frame so nurses could know her husband.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How you can help when your loved one is in a coma in the ICU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When her husband landed in the ICU with ANCA vasculitis, Bonnie Delaney brought in a digital picture frame so nurses could know her husband.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UCHealth Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uchealthorg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-17T17:54:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-05-31T18:14:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/05\/11100503\/DELANEY_004eee.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Erin Emery, UCHealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Erin Emery, UCHealth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Erin Emery, UCHealth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#\/schema\/person\/f989ee92cb6da7cfb7f697db1c6771b3\"},\"headline\":\"How you can help when your loved one is in a coma in the ICU\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-05-17T17:54:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-05-31T18:14:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/\"},\"wordCount\":1933,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/05\/11100503\/DELANEY_004eee.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Intensive care unit\",\"Lung and respiratory care\",\"Southern Colorado\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Stories\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-you-can-help-when-your-loved-one-is-in-a-coma-in-the-icu\/\",\"name\":\"How to help when a loved one is in a coma in the ICU - 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