A Critical Care Patient Encounter

Rad T 66
1-16-13

A critical care patient encounter

I have not had that much experience in Intensive Care Unit. My best experiencethat I can think of pertains to a “Gastrostomy Tube”. About one year ago I was going to Novato Community Hospital. On a certain day ayoung kid, about six years old, showed up with his parents. Right at the beginning, I was able to notice that this kid had quite a few medicalproblems. The little kid was already six years old and he was not able to speak or understand instructions. Then his father explained tome that this kid had suffered a terrible accident when he was only six months old. He had fallen from bed and suffered a terrible injurywhen falling down. Because of this accident he lost vision on both eyes, and forgot how to eat. In order to keep him alive, the doctorsplaced a Gastrostomy Tube. This tube is inserted through the abdomen and delivers food directly to the stomach in liquid form. Our job was totake several abdomen exposures to visualize GI system and tube placement. It is amazing to see the procedures that this young kid has beenthrough. I saw the plastic tube coming out of his abdomen and his father said that they needed training on how to feed the kid. It reallybroke my heart to see this kid in that situation. I mean, maybe he will never be able to see, and who knows if he can learn how to eat.