Watch Extremis Online | Netflix
Watch Extremis Online | Netflix:
Forget Grey’s Anatomy, this is what the ICU actually looks like. This is the most realistic peek into my work reality you will probably ever see. There’s a lot MORE to it, I’d love to see something like this that is much longer, and includes more diverse cases with more varied prognosis… I’m impressed they were able to get the approval for as much as they did show, as this is such a personal and painful time for families, and a dehumanizing time for patients…
I think it’s important that more realistic pictures of ICU stays, aggressive life-sustaining treatment, and end-of-life choices are shared and viewed. Books like Being Mortal have done a great job at opening the conversation more, and I’m so glad that Netflix picked up this content, and for those that pushed to make it.
These are the situations that I often wish I could stream for others to see what it’s really like to try and speak with someone on a breathing tube, the opening sequence, with the nonsense scribbles someone tried to write? Literally happens every time. Every time I try to explain that they won’t have the strength to write the letters, trust me, every time we try anyway, every time it makes them more frustrated because I can’t read any of it.
Please watch this. Twenty minutes of your life to really make you aware of something I promise you, you are going to go through at some point with someone you love. The only thing we can be sure of in this life is that we will one day lose it. There is no escaping sickness and death. And please feel free to ask me any questions it might bring up for you. I’d love to discuss any of this and more with you. I love educating about the realities of the ICU, talking about end-of-life choices, and helping people have a greater understanding of the options and how to approach them.
I kind of want to watch this, both because it sounds really interesting and because you (Erin) asked me to. I also kind of don’t. I was ignorant about what having a loved one in an ICU was like – until I wasn’t. It’s an experience I’m leery of repeating, even at the remove of a well-done documentary. But I know it’s something I probably will experience again, the same as everyone, and it would be worth watching to help prepare for that.
In the meantime, thank you for reminding me how much I owe the people who work in that environment. My particular loved one came out of her ICU experience okay, in part because at a crucial moment one or her ICU nurses recognized something that all her other caregivers, including her doctors, hadn’t: that she was having a bad reaction to one of her medications. That was probably the most dramatic moment in my life. But for that nurse it was just another in a thousand moments, the sort of thing she deals with every day.
I think about that a lot. I never thanked her adequately. Like a lot of patients’ families we were so stressed that taking time to express our gratitude was pretty far down the list. Even if we hadn’t been so out of it, though, I’m not sure I could have thanked her adequately. How do you thank someone for something like that?
Anyway, despite it being so inadequate, thank you, Erin, on behalf of all the families you help through some of the worst moments of their lives.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/2cqhBMM.
Tags: so yeah, i'll watch it.
