ICU psychosis?

[ClarabelleCowFan]

Hope your Mom is feeling better soon, OP.

My Mom experienced hallucinations in the ICU as well. She would complain to me that the nurse took her shopping cart away before she was finished shopping. We had a good laugh when she was better over some of the stories she told us. She swore they seemed real to her at the time.

What would be odd to us though was she would be telling one of her wild stories then literally say something completely lucid (like reminding my Dad about an auction he wanted to go to that was that exact day).

 

[bumbershoot]

My brother has been in the ICU and on a ventilator for 2 weeks as of today, and his mom's a nurse, so has been letting me know all the drugs they have been giving him all the way. As they are reducing the oxygen and preparing him to be extubated (knock wood in a day or two), they are starting some anti-psychosis drug to prepare him as well. So it's definitely something known.

I...they would wake her up to take her vitals and ask her questions (which she would frequently answer wrong because she's a heavy sleeper and would do the same thing to me years and years before the surgery), ...

Oh man I can't stand when they do that. My best friend has had 3 major surgeries since we've been adults, and we all try to make sure she's got someone with her at ALL times, because her surgeon group has a HORRIBLE tendency to come in immediately after she's dosed with the morphine clicker, and she has a very good way of pretending to be alert for about a minute post-click, and she sounds like she's OK, but meanwhile, she's answering ALL wrong. I know I had to step in a few times when the questions and answers were leading somewhere dangerous, to make sure they knew she was entirely out of it even though she didn't sound like it.



OP, best of luck!