Blissful life after the ventilator

Merv Reed explains the terror of what it was like to be a boy with polio and to be totally dependent on a machine to breathe

AS worldwide concern spreads with coronavirus, it reminds me of the concerns 50 years ago when polio hit our community.

Yes, I contracted the polio virus, and gradually over a period of about three weeks went from being a very fit 92kg playing Australian rules football, state volleyball and competitively boxing, to being in an isolation ward at the Royal Perth Hospital, in some distress with polio.

About three days after I was admitted, the foundation head of the University Medical School came to see me, and told me that I had polio.

He was a wonderful man and his name was Professor Eric Saint. Prof Saint then said they would need to operate on me, to make an incision in my neck and insert a tube down my throat so I could breathe. This is a tracheotomy. If this was not done, I’d suffocate, he said.

Surgery was completed, and I was connected to a ventilator that gradually took over my breathing. I was moved to a specialist quadriplegic facility of the Royal Perth Hospital.

Polio is a virus that causes motor and muscle disability, and in my case, a gradual slowdown of breathing and loss of use of all of my muscles, including eyelids.

Living on a ventilator is terrifying. Most people have little idea how the oxygen/ nitrogen mix is firstly warmed and then has to have sterile moisture added to the oxygen/ nitrogen stream so it can be tolerated by your lungs, and not dry them out completely, which can lead to your death.

The reason this was needed was the air is no longer going through my nose or mouth to be filtered and moistened, but directly into the tube inserted into my throat. You lie there in your hospital bed looking at the equipment measuring your heart rate, your uptake of oxygen in your bloodstream, and your temperature.

BEING on a ventilator is challenging. Firstly, fear and concern are uppermost, from the simplest of issues such as what happens if the power goes off? What happens if they run out of oxygen? And will the nurse come and suck out the tracheotomy tube, as I am starting to gurgle?

After several days you get more accustomed to the bulky machine and become more understanding of its importance and knowledgeable about its operation.

As you get sicker, the physiotherapists come and pummel your chest, back and front, to ensure you do not get water lying in your lungs that leads to pleurisy or pneumonia. You get turned each hour to prevent bed sores.

At this stage in an isolation ward living on a ventilator, the world becomes a very small place, and the nurses and doctors are the only people you can rely on.

Your family comes in to see you, as does your friend the parish priest and your mates, but they all in due course leave, and once again you lie there at night, listening to the ventilator and thinking about places of wonder, and food.

With COVID-19, nobody can come and see you.

One day, months later, Prof Saint comes and says in a little while they will disconnect the ventilator to see how I go breathing for myself. I am terrified because I have been totally dependent on the ventilator, and it is my friend.

The hour arrives and the gavage feeding tubes are removed from my nose and stomach, and then the ventilator is disconnected.

I am breathing on my own for a little while, when the Prof says they will reconnect it for a while. This disconnection and then reconnection happens for a day and then the ventilator is turned off permanently. Days later the Prof comes and tells me that I am going to the small operating theatre in the specialist Quadriplegic/ Paraplegic Ward I am resident in, so he can remove the tracheotomy tube in my throat and stitch up the wound.

I return an hour later, able to breathe through my nose and mouth for the first time in many months. I can drink and eat normally. It is wonderful.

Three months later, after learning how to walk again, and having lost about 35kg, I came home to my family.

If you have a loved one with this terrible COVID-19 disease, and they have difficulty breathing, then a ventilator is a life-saver, and people get to come home to you and live full lives.

COVID-19 kills people and does not discriminate. Follow the Premier’s instructions and be aware. Social distancing is your best friend, and there is life after the ventilator.