ROUEN, France (AP) – Suffocating slowly in a French intensive care unit, Patrick Aricique feared he would die of sick lungs that felt “completely burned from the inside, burned like the cathedral in Paris”, while Tired doctors and nurses worked day and night to keep COVID-19 seriously ill patients like him alive.
A married couple in the same intensive care unit died a few hours apart as Aricique, feeling as fragile as a “soap bubble ready to come out,” also fought the coronavirus. The 67-year-old retired construction contractor gives a divine hand for his survival. “I saw archangels, I saw little cherubs,” he said. “It was like communicating with the afterlife.”
On his side were the French medical professionals, who created the bitter experiences of previous waves of infection., now fight constantly to keep patients awake and turn off the mechanical ventilators, if possible. They treated Aricique with nasal tubes and a mask that bathed his lungs that rose in a constant flow of oxygen. This relieved him of the discomfort of a thick ventilation tube deep in his throat and the heavy sedation that patients often fear – sometimes rightly so – that they will never wake up.
Although mechanical ventilation is inevitable for some patients, it is a less systematic step now than at the beginning of the pandemic. Dr. Philippe Gouin, who heads the intensive care unit where Aricique underwent treatment for severe COVID-19, said: “We know that each tube we insert will have its share of complications, extensions of stay and sometimes morbidity”.
About 15 percent to 20 percent of his intubated patients do not survive, he said.
“It’s a milestone that weighs on survival,” Gouin said. “We know we will lose a number of patients that we will not be able to help negotiate in this corner.”
Switching to less invasive respiratory treatments also helps French ICUs prevent collapse under a new renewal of coronavirus cases. Overloaded by a more contagious virus that first devastated neighboring Britain, France’s third wave of infection has pushed the number of COVID-19-related deaths in the country to more than 100,000 people.. Hospitals across the country are once again facing the macabre math of making room for thousands of critically ill patients.
“We have a steady stream of cases,” said Dr. Philippe Montravers, head of intensive care at Bichat Hospital in Paris, who is again squeezing patients in makeshift critical care units. “Each of these cases are absolutely terrible stories – for families, for the patients themselves, of course, for the responsible doctors, for the nurses.”
Sedated patients kept alive with mechanical ventilation often occupy their intensive care beds for weeks, even months, and the physical and mental trauma of their trials can take several months to heal. But 13 days after being hospitalized for intensive care in the cathedral city of Normandy, Rouen, Aricique was recovered enough for another serious patient to take his place.
A non-invasive nasal ventilation system that distributes thousands of liters (hundreds of gallons) of life-sustaining oxygen every hour made him go through the worst infection, until he was well enough to reduce the flow to a leak. and to stand upright, his New Testament Bible beside him. Entering a small omelet and red cabbage lunch to begin to regain his strength, Aricique said he felt resurrected. A nurse released him from drops that had been stuck in his arms, tying the tubes like entrails.
Driving with doctors and nurses in care, Dr. Dorothee Carpentier allowed herself a mini-celebration as she passed Aricique’s room, declaring him fit for discharge. The patient in the next room could also leave, she decided. She described the impending departures as “small victories” for the full 20-bed ward, a temporary arrangement in what was previously a surgical unit and is now fully converted to C0VID-19 care.
“I imagine they will be filled again by morning,” Carpentier said of the two free beds. “The hard thing about this third wave is that there is no stop button. We don’t know when it will start to slow down. ”
Further down the corridor, a 69-year-old woman sitting face down on her stomach struggled to breathe with an oxygen mask and dangerously approached the point where doctors would decide to anesthetize and intubate her. . Nurse Gregory Bombard recruited the visiting woman’s daughter-in-law in an effort to stop the next step, impressing on her the importance of sticking with the mask.
“Morale is so important and it needs to turn this corner,” Bombard said. “We are doing what we can. They must also make the effort to win, otherwise they will lose “.
“Do what you can,” the daughter-in-law’s nurse told him.
The relative later left the patient’s room with hazy eyes and shook.
“It’s very hard to see her like that,” she said. “He lets go.”
In another room, Gouin gently pleaded with a 55-year-old stall operator who complained that his oxygen mask made him feel claustrophobic.
“You have to play the game,” the doctor insisted. “My goal is not to get to the point where we have to put you to sleep.”
The patient agreed. “I don’t want to be intubated, to be in a coma, without knowing when you will wake up,” he said.
Intubation can be traumatic for everyone involved. A patient who cried when he was put to sleep remained sedated in the ICU almost two weeks later.
“He was terrified,” Bombard recalled. “It was awful.”
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