Plumbing

If you are not terribly handy around the house, marry an ICU nurse.

The ICU nursing profession requires plumbing, electrical, and computer skills in addition to the traditional cleaning and bathing and taping and sticking and improvising skills. (And did I mention the medical knowledge of the entire body?)

Drew is not the sickest person on this hall by a long shot. He has some nice stuff in his room, but you can easily get more with some trauma injuries and a few failing systems. However, he has an impressive display of tubes and wires which will take at least part of a day to disconnect. For example:

The 28 tubes and wires and pipes connected directly to Drew:

1-5: leads to the heart monitor (for pulse and heart rhythm)
6-8: tubes to the vein in his neck (for his sedation meds and drawing blood for labs)
9-11: tubes to the vein in his chest (for his transplant and antibiotic meds)
12-13: tubes to ventilator input/output (one for inspiration, one for expiration)
14: suction tube to his lungs (the least pleasant to the observer – yukky stuff)
15: sensor lead for ventilator (detects his own breaths, and then gets the ventilator to help)
16: lead to arterial pressure sensor (beats wearing the arm cuff all the time)
17: arterial line (for withdrawing arterial blood for some tests)
18: ventilator balloon access tube (to prevent leakage around the tube)
19: feeding tube (for the milky stuff they call nutrition)
20: tube for mouth suction (like at the dentist)
21: blood oxygen sensor (to assure he is getting enough oxygen)
22: catheter (the least pleasant to the patient)
23-26: leg vein compression hosing (to prevent leg blood pooling
27-28: cooling blanket hoses (to quickly cool off high fevers)

Not included since they are not directly hooked to Drew:

- electronic thermometer (thank goodness we learned centigrade conversions in Australia)
- blood pressure cuff (for doing BP the old fashioned way)
- glucose meter (for insulin changes, a side effect of his steroid treatments)
- nurse’s laptop (on a cart in the hall)
- three rolling doctor/specialist laptops (roaming the halls with the residents)
- visitor laptops (up to three at one point this week!)

We like our ICU nurses. Sorry Drew won't remember them.

Day 25 is about the same as Day 24.