ROUEN, France (AP) – Patrick Aricique slowly suffocated in a French intensive care unit, fearing he would die from his diseased lungs who felt they were “completely burned from within, like the cathedral in Paris” while tired doctors and nurses worked day and night to keep seriously ill COVID-19 patients like him alive.
A married couple in the same ICU die within hours of each other as Aricique, and feel as fragile as a soap bubble ready to pop, ‘the coronavirus also struggled. The 67-year-old retired building contractor gives a divine hand for his survival. “I saw archangels and little cherubim,” he said. “It was like communicating with the afterlife.”
On his side were French medical professionals who forged the bitter experiences of previous waves of infection, now fights relentlessly to keep patients awake and away from mechanical fans, if at all possible. They treated Aricique with nasal tubes and a mask that bathed his lungs in a constant stream of oxygen. This spared him the discomfort of a thick ventilation tube deep in his throat and heavy anesthesia from which patients often fear – sometimes rightly – that they will never wake up.
Although mechanical ventilation is unavoidable for some patients, it is a step that is now being taken less systematically than at the onset of the pandemic. Dr Philippe Gouin, who heads the ICU department where Aricique underwent severe COVID-19 treatment, said: “We know that every tube we insert has its share of complications, extensions in stay and sometimes diseases will bring. “
About 15% to 20% of its integrated patients do not survive, he said.
“This is a milestone that weighs survival,” Gouin said. “We know we will lose a certain number of patients who cannot help us negotiate this angle.”
The shift to less invasive respiratory treatments is also helping French ICUs avert the collapse under a renewed coronavirus case. The third wave of infections in France has pushed the country’s COVID-19-related death toll past 100,000 people, as it was a more contagious virus variant that devastated neighboring Britain.. Hospitals across the country are once again struggling with the macabre math to make room for thousands of critically ill patients.
“We have a continuous flow of business,” said Dr. Philippe Montravers, an ICU chief at Bichat Hospital in Paris, said. These are again patients who are shoemakers in temporary critical care units. “Each of these cases are absolutely horrific stories – for the families, of course for the patients, for the doctors in charge, for the nurses.”
Gentle patients kept alive by mechanical ventilation often occupy their ICU beds for weeks, even months, and the physical and mental trauma of their trials can take months to heal. But 13 days after he was admitted to the cathedral city of Rouen in the cathedral in Normandy, Aricique was recovered sufficiently to take in another critically ill patient.
A non-invasive nasal ventilation system that releases thousands of liters (hundreds of liters) of life-sustaining oxygen every hour caused him to get the worst of his infection, until he was good enough to reduce the flow to a drop and sit up straight, his New Testament bible by his side. In a small lunch with omelette and red cabbage to rebuild his strength, Aricique said he felt uplifted. A nurse freed him from droplets that were plugged into his arms and bound the tubes like intestines.
Dr. Dorothee Carpentier, who sat around with junior doctors and nurses on tow, allowed herself to make a mini-celebration as she swept past Aricique’s room after declaring him fit. The patient in the adjoining room could also leave, she decided. She described the impending departure as ‘small victories’ for the entire 20-bed ward, a temporary setup in a former surgical unit and has now been completely converted to C0VID-19 care.
“I can imagine they will be refilled by morning,” Carpentier said of the two evacuated beds. ‘The hard thing about this third wave is that there is no stop button. We do not know when it will start to slow down. ”
Down the hall, a 69-year-old woman struggled with her face down on her stomach struggling to breathe with an oxygen mask and to get dangerously close to the point where doctors would decide to numb and intubate. Nurse Gregory Bombard recruited the woman’s visiting daughter-in-law in an attempt to ward off the next step and impress her on how important it is to stick to the mask.
“Morality is so important, and she needs to make the turn,” Bombard said. “We do what we can. They must also make the effort to win, otherwise they lose. ‘
“Do what you can,” the nurse told the daughter-in-law.
The family member later foggy and shaken came out of the patient’s room.
“It’s really hard to see her like that,” she said. “She let her go.”
In another room, Gouin gently pleaded with a 55-year-old market stall who complained that his oxygen mask made him feel claustrophobic.
“You have to play the game,” the doctor insisted. “My goal is that we should not get to the point of putting you to sleep.”
The patient agrees. “I do not want to be integrated, to be in a coma and not know when you are going to wake up,” he said.
Intubations can be traumatic for anyone involved. A patient who sobbed when he fell asleep was stunned in the ICU almost two weeks later.
“You could see he was terrified,” Bombard recalled. “It was awful.”
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