My Journey to the Neuro ICU + Its Impact

I know we have done a lot of recipe posts recently but whenever I take it back to nutrition, I’m in my happiest place. Plus I wanted to give you some background info about me before my next post about nutrition + the brain. Neuro health is near and dear to my heart because- these are the patients I see!! I have the Neuro ICU and then I also have the Neuro stepdown unit (where they go when they leave the ICU). I also have the psych lockdown unit- but that’s a story for another day. Just for some background info…I started my career in dietetics in a 1200 bed hospital in Orlando almost four years ago. There, I started on general floors and after about 4 months-ish I moved to the VTICU and cardiac floors. I looooooooved these patients. The VTICU (vascular thoracic ICU- is where patients go after vascular or thoracic surgeries- CABGs etc.) is special because it’s also where I met my husband. At the time he was a med student doing an ICU rotation. I love the ICU setting for so many reasons. Typically, for nutrition, our interventions are clear cut in the ICU. This is because whether the Neuro ICU or VTICU, the patients are, a lot of the time, intubated (need ventilator support to breathe) and a lot of the times on enteral nutrition (aka tube feeding). Therefore, in the ICU it’s more math than diet education. We take into account- labs, disease state, height/weight history, medications, and nutritional needs when deciding what form of nutrition intervention these patients need. I know a lot of people hear dietitian and they think we are throwing around diet plans like little fairies- not the case. It just depends which unit you’re on. So moving on- I left the hospital in Orlando and we moved to northern Florida for my husband’s residency. I started on general floors again, moved to Oncology/BMT unit and then finally moved back to the ICU – but this time, Neuro! My heart has always been in the ICU. As a dietitian, sometimes you have to wait until certain units become available. So the Neuro ICU was the first ICU available and actually – I wasn’t that excited about it. Fast forward and it is by far my favorite patient population. 

The Neuro ICU, and the hospital we’re currently at in general, has had a major impact on honestly even my daily life- both positive and negative. The negative- I’m finally now spinning as a positive though! It took me awhile but I was able to pinpoint why the current hospital I’m at was giving me SO much more anxiety than the previous hospital I worked at. I loved my first job but I did my job, went home and didn’t really think much of it. The patients I have now, have had SUCH an impact. I finally realized it came down to the type of patients I was now seeing. The hospital I currently work for is a Level One Trauma and we also have a Burn ICU. While my first hospital was gigantic – it did not have trauma. Everything but! I see a lot of patients with traumatic brain injuries from the worst of the worst kinds of accidents. It has in turn, increased my anxiety outside of the hospital. Driving, flying…you name it. I’ve had a pretty challenging time separating patients from personal life. But I’ve been working hard to spin it into something positive. I feel so thankful for my health and my family’s health every. single. day. There is something about seeing an innocent 20 year old, in the hospital for a TBI from a car accident, and they’re mind just isn’t there anymore. Seeing how this impacts their parents and their families… I mean it’s very, very heartbreaking. Not to say that patients in the hospital with other disease states don’t hit home too but for some reason or another Neuro has left a tad more of a mark.

Every morning I come to work- my office is on the same floor as the Neuro ICU- and I see these families that literally sleep there for weeks and don’t go home. We have showers in the waiting room and a lot of them will bring pillows, their kids, blankets, sleeping bags and just stay there…waiting on their family or friend to get better and sometimes they don’t/sometimes they do. There isn’t a morning though that seeing that doesn’t effect me. In the best of ways.

Patrick and I always say we wish we could give people just a glimpse into what disease and trauma looks like- people would change their lives immediately. Health is important – THE most important thing. Losing it, is not fun- to put it lightly. It’s agonizing. A lot of these families and patients (if not all) wish they had the opportunity, that most of you reading this blog have- to change your life for the healthier and be thankful for every day. We are all taught to worry about other things- our hair, our cars, our homes- really none of that is important in comparison to your health.

Ok I went deep with you all and now we can get on to Neuro Health!!! But I had to share my experience in Critical Care + the Hospital setting. If it motivates even one person- totally worth it!

-The Neilan Family-