Andrea's Story
Andrea Williams remembers the exact moment she knew she would get her life back.
A speech-language pathologist at Select Specialty Hospital – Midtown Atlanta was testing whether she could swallow. Andrea, 58, was being fed through a tube and the pathologist was checking to see if it was time to remove it. Could she move food through her esophagus without aspirating?
“I was given a cracker during my swallow test and I passed the test!” she said. “I was able to start eating real food again.”
Andrea’s ordeal began six weeks earlier when she suddenly felt short of breath at home. Her daughter called 911 and Andrea rode to Southern Regional Hospital in Atlanta in a fire truck.
“The (emergency medical technician) told me I had no oxygen in my blood,” Andrea said. “I really don’t remember anything after that.”
Andrea, who lives with her daughter and grandchildren, was already coping with health conditions including asthma, anxiety and a subdural hematoma, which is bleeding in the brain. Physicians now diagnosed her with acute hypoxemic and hypercapnic respiratory failure – too much carbon dioxide and not enough oxygen in her blood.
Andrea was critically ill in an intensive care unit. A breathing tube provided her oxygen; the feeding tube nourished her body. It took three weeks for her to stabilize enough to move to the next step in her recovery.
Her family chose Select Specialty Hospital – Midtown Atlanta because her daughter knew a former patient who had done well there.
Upon admission, Andrea’s goals were to walk and talk again, to eat food and to be strong enough to take her grandchildren to church.
Her physician-led team that included nurses and therapists created a plan to help her achieve those goals. Respiratory therapists slowly liberated Andrea from the ventilator by gradually reducing the amount of air it provided to her tracheostomy, carefully monitoring how much she could contribute before she got too exhausted. They monitored how long Andrea could breathe completely on her own, without the ventilator.
She regained core strength by starting with exercises on the edge of her bed and progressing to standing and even taking steps. When Andrea arrived, she was too weak to grip objects with her hands so therapists focused on helping her take care of herself again. For example, she relearned to wash her face and put on clothing while sitting on the edge of the bed, then progressed to doing those activities at a sink.
Sometimes, anxiety crept in.
“They were so caring and patient with me,” Andrea said. “They gave me the confidence to keep pushing myself to get to where I am today.”
Andrea was released from Select Medical and on her way to inpatient rehabilitation in three weeks. She was breathing on her own with only supplemental oxygen through a nose tube. After passing a special swallow test that demonstrated she could keep food and drink in her digestive tract, her feeding tube was removed and she was eating soft foods by mouth again.
Her advice to others going through a similarly challenging time? “Don’t give up. Just keep the faith.”