So cheer up, fellow oldies!




YOUR LIFE STORY
(If you go on a ventilator)

*

(...and if you’re a man,)
(...and if your problem is something other than coronavirus,)
(...and it’s data from 1993,)
(...and coronavirus may be worse than your average acute respiratory failure bug,)
(...and ventilators are better today than in '93.)

But HEY, it’s better than no info at all! 

Buckle up, this ride is about to begin.

You are super critical (very low blood oxygen levels, pressurized oxygen not working) so…

You get intubated with a high-tech ventilator, mechanically assisted breathing.

You have a 62% chance of living long enough to have the tube removed and be “weaned” from the ventilator. [38% chance of dying, pre-weaning]

If you lived, you now have a 46%  chance of living until they release you from ICU into the general hospital population.

If you made it through that, things are looking up. You have a 43% chance of living until you are discharged.

THEN you have a 30% chance of living another year! 

After that, you are on you own. You might make it to 105.


DON’T PANIC
Remember, these nauseating numbers are strictly about men (only, alas) who are so sick they have to be ventilated.  Maybe for men that sick, these numbers aren’t all that bad.

A couple paragraphs from the 1993 study 

We reviewed a 5-year experience with mechanical ventilation in 383 men with acute respiratory failure (NOT CORONAVIRUS) and studied the impact of patient age, cause of acute respiratory failure, and duration of mechanical ventilation on survival.


When our data were combined with 10 previously reported series, mean survival rates were calculated to be 62 percent to ventilator weaning, 46 percent to ICU discharge, 43 percent to hospital discharge, and 30 percent to 1 year after discharge. Of 255 patients weaned from mechanical ventilation, 44 (17.3 percent) required an additional period of mechanical ventilation during the same hospitalization.


CHALLENGE.  IF YOU FIND MORE RECENT, COVID-19 DATA ON THIS, PLEASE DROP ME AN EMAIL WITH THE LINK TO YOUR SOURCE.  I WILL UPDATE THIS ASAP. duffworx@earthlink.net


*pix credit    (A very good YouTube on "weaning")

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