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Intensive care: experiences of family & friendsArrow
Aged 31-40
Interview 01  

Interview 01

Age at Interview: 34
Sex: Female
Background: IT project manager, living with partner, no children. Ethnic background/nationality: White British.
Brief outline:In March 2005 her sister was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome. This is a rare disorder of the peripheral nerves, those outside the brain and spinal chord.

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She and other members of her family helped clean her sister's mouth and with other aspects of care whenever they visited her.

 



In general I found the nurses very helpful and very kind - 

In Intensive Care? 

Yes, yes. And I think they were quite relaxed about us doing things like washing her face and all, obviously there were issues about germs and hygiene, but they were actually very good about us doing things like that, which I thought was good. Because, you know, you want to feel like you can kind of go in and do a few things for the person you're visiting, without feeling like you have to ask for everything that you're going to do. To the extent where we were able to sort of use the little sponges on sticks to moisten her mouth, and use the tube to suck the stuff out of her mouth for her, and things that otherwise you'd have to ask the nurse to do every few minutes. 

You know, you could at least, sort of the only thing that, sort of things you couldn't do were things like when she needed to cough. And they had to put a tube down and that was really horrible to watch. But once I'd seen it once or twice I knew what it was. But it was, she went bright red and started sort of convulsing. And then the nurses would like, “Oh, no, this is, you know, all we have to do is just put this tube down and it...” I know she hated that. But it had to be done. And it's just quite interesting to see the way someone has to be sort of kept going in those circumstances when their body just can't do anything for itself.
Jonathan Miller - Intensive care
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