This article is part of a series of contributions.
I still have two arguments that could speak for a tracheostomy tube. So take a breath and continue with the text.
- Night-time suction would no longer be a problem.
A double-edged sword, I would argue. Just this morning I was once again told - but this time by a different carer than usual - before the first good morning at 7.56am that I should have said that I wanted to be suctioned during the last positioning. That was just ten minutes ago.
Well, that wasn't it. But I no longer have such discussions because my carers feel personally attacked as soon as I come up with arguments like „Look in the machine's alarm log and you'll see that it's been half an hour“.
To be honest, I can't think of anything more to say about the fact that I, as a patient, have to justify getting up at eight o'clock. The next person who is so rude to me and doesn't even understand that they are getting paid for this work can look for another patient.
Anyway, we did the suction and I was awake. Two hours later, however, my eyes closed again, which really annoys me. Would it be different now if I had a cannula? Would this situation not have happened at all if I had had a cannula this morning? Quite possibly. Does that justify the intervention required for a tracheostoma? On its own, no. But it would be a big plus. The first that I see as a real argument for a cannula. - We wouldn't always have to change the mask first to sleep.
That's an argument I can make something out of. If I had a cannula right now - at this very moment as I write these lines - I would be asleep. Because the past days and nights have been nauseating. My eyes are closing. Besides, I love to sleep. But just imagine the reactions I'd get if I had my mask changed every ten minutes. Doesn't make much sense with carers, where changing the mask can take an hour or not work at all. So far and no further, I would say. Now that everyone is back, we know that my head and my hair are not to blame if the mask is crooked from the start. But anyone who refuses to keep their head straight when putting it on no longer needs to hope for my sympathy. The puppy bonus is over.
With very few exceptions, it always comes down to the same question. And it is not, as I thought, what advantages I would have from the cannula. A better question is what disadvantages dependent on the nursing staff I would no longer have and how far I am prepared to go for this.
Housten, we have a problem. As long as my speech therapist still finds me unwashed at lunchtime because smoking and drinking coffee were more important... As long as my friends come to visit and find me bathed in my own saliva because nobody looks after me if I don't call out even though it's well known that I can hardly breathe today... As long as masks are put on so listlessly that they look like the cover picture even after I've asked twice to take the mask out of my eyes? Dude! A blind man with a walking stick can see that the mask is crooked and lopsided...
How far am I still willing to go? Not a millimetre.
