Ventilator Quotes

As the nurses busied themselves with other patients and statistics, Livia slid her hand over his. She needed to feel his skin. She tucked his hand under the thin blanket and held it without protection. The same tingling she'd felt when they first held hands flooded her skin. He's still in there. They can tell me anything they want. Blake's right here.
She scooted her chair closer to his head. The deep, monotonous breaths the ventilator forced him to take sounded scary, but Livia held tight to his hand.
"I love you, Blake Hartt," she whispered. "I'll love you forever. ~ Debra Anastasia

Science can make a heart beat with ventilator, but there is only one power that makes it live, that is LOVE which is the purest form of FAITH. ~ Vikrmn

He found Whitebread curled up in the chair like a cat, her hand touching Blake's. She was sleeping, and Beckett had almost turned tail to leave her in peace when Blake's eyes snapped open.
"The fuck!?" Beckett ran to Blake's side as his brother's face registered the room in panic.
Whitebread popped up and was almost nose-to-nose with Blake immediately. Beckett leaned around her and held his brother's flailing arms.
Livia spoke in a soft, urgent voice. "Blake? They have you on a ventilator; this thing in your mouth needs to be removed by the doctor. Just calm down. Look, I'm here. I'm here. See? It's okay. Just try to be calm."
Whitebread stroked Blake's cheek. ~ Debra Anastasia

Terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. ~ Atul Gawande

There was, I thought, something calling to me from out in the dark.
It came from out in the tempest, even from the lights of the fishing boats a mile out at sea. You can be called to a last effort, a final heroic statement, because I doubt you call yourself to leave comforts and certainties for an open road. But the call is inside your own head. It's a sad summons from the depths of your own wasted past. You could call it the imperative to go out with full-tilt trumpets and gunshots instead of the quietly desperate sound of the hospital ventilator. Victory instead of defeat. ~ Lawrence Osborne

Two-thirds of the terminal cancer patients in the Coping with Cancer study reported having had no discussion with their doctors about their goals for end-of-life care, despite being, on average, just four months from death. But the third who did have discussions were far less likely to undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation or be put on a ventilator or end up in an intensive care unit. Most of them enrolled in hospice. They suffered less, were physically more capable, and were better able, for a longer period, to interact with others. In addition, six months after these patients died, their family members were markedly less likely to experience persistent major depression. In other words, people who had substantive discussions with their doctor about their end-of-life preferences were far more likely to die at peace and in control of their situation and to spare their family anguish. ~ Atul Gawande

Her words felt like a new beginning, a turning of a page, and, ominously, rang like the beginning of a final chapter. ~ Darcy Leech

In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one's final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or "It's O.K." or "I'm sorry" or "I love you."

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system's expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what's most important to them ~ Atul Gawande

A journal of the 'subjective' kind I have always thought foolish, as nurturing a morbid self -consciousness in the writer; and yet, alone so much as I am, it is well to have some sort of a ventilator from the interior. ~ Lucy Larcom

He'd been in surgery for-like-ever, then in recovery, but they put him in a room because, despite the amount of blood loss, his wounds were no longer life threatening. "You here to get in my pants?" he asked.
"You're not wearing any pants," I reminded him. "You're wearing a girly gown with a built-in ass ventilator. ~ Darynda Jones

Every stink that fights the ventilator thinks it is Don Quixote. ~ Stanislaw Lem