ICU

The patient is lying on the bed motionless save for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, with tubes coming out of every natural orifice and a few from surgically-created ones. All around him are monitors displaying colorful squiggly lines and flashing buttons. With lines put into various parts of the patient’s body – artery, vein, brain – wires connected to other parts – finger, chest – and tubes down yet other parts – trachea, bladder – the patient’s every physiological change is on display. The intensive care unit is where medicine goes high-tech. It’s the playground of control freaks. Armed with a suite of electronic and pharmaceutical arsenal, the ICU doctor can fine tune the mechanics of each patient’s physiological function.

Among the patients that take up residence in ICU, quite a few are accident victims. Pedestrian vs. car, motorcycle vs. truck, cyclist vs. truck, car vs. tree, car vs. car – those are the descriptions given to each of the mostly young patients, as if they had foolishly engaged in a physical altercation with their respective adversary. Their multiple fractures, ruptured internal organs, and brain injuries had instantly transformed their lives. Multiple operations to fix the fractures, remove the ruptured organs, or generally put the patient back to one piece as much as possible are just the beginning of a lengthy recovery process – that’s if they survive – with deficits of normal function to varying degrees. You can consider that either lucky or unlucky, depending on your outlook on life.