Day 14 - 24x7 care in ICU

18/05/2023
David
David
L+B Articles
Induced coma and ventilator keep Bo alive as tetanus attacks the nervous system

It was surreal, Bo had taken a turn for the worse. The phrase "no news is good news" is what you are reminded with each day the team at The Ralph provide an update. Sadly, we had received a few calls over the prior days, at the wee hours of the morning. Bo's situation had become extremely complicated.

Bo had succumbed to stage IV Tetanus, and it had generalised in his body. It resulted in extreme rigidity across all his muscles. The toxin wraps itself around the receptor nerves, and the body is unable to get itself out of a state of full rigidity. The muscles burn hot, tense and not just his legs, but every muscle. The team had him on a number of meds. He was fully sedated, but worse, complications began. He had pnemonia, a collapsed lung, tubes were everywhere.

The positive was that he had responded well to the ventilator, (one of two hospitals in UK able to provide), the bad news is when we researched mortality of stage III & IV tetanus, and on incubator, the statistics showed most don't make it, and 100% of stage IV don't make it off the ventilator.

Bo was fighting, his condition could not get any worse than it was.

You can read the next instalment of Bo's treatment and recovery in the following articles:

Day 15 - The demons were still present