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 say. Only this morning I was once again told - but this time by a different nurse than usual - before the first good morning at 7:56 a.m. that I should have said that during the last positioning that I wanted to be suctioned. That had been just ten minutes ago.
Well, it wasn't. But I don't have such discussions any more because my carers feel personally attacked as soon as I come up with arguments like "Look in the alarm log of the machine 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 have to justify myself as a patient if I want to get up "already" at eight o'clock. The next person who is so rude to me and doesn't even understand that he gets 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 build something out of. If I had a cannula now - at this very moment as I am writing these lines - I would be asleep. Because the past days and nights are bad for my bones. My eyes are closing. Besides, I love to sleep. But imagine the reactions I would get if I had the mask changed every ten minutes. It doesn't make much sense with nurses, who can easily take an hour to change the mask, or it doesn't work at all. So far and no further, I would say. Since everyone is back, we know that my head and my hair are not to blame if the mask is crooked from the start. But those who vehemently refuse to keep their heads straight when putting it on no longer need to hope for my sympathy. The puppy bonus is over.The
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 visiting friends find me bathed in my own saliva because no one checks on me if I don't call out even though it's known that I can barely breathe today... As long as masks are put on me so listlessly that they look like the cover picture even after I ask them twice to take the mask out of my eyes? Dude! A blind man with a cane can see that the mask is crooked...
How far am I still willing to go? Not a millimetre.
