After hours of lying knocked unconscious on the surgical table, patients are brought to the recovery room, still under the care of surgeons like
Nir Hus. Relief should flood the postoperative room at this point, but the care intended for this phase must not be swept out.
Protocol for attending physicians and nurses includes the monitoring of vital signs, signs of complications, body temperature, the wound, and IV infusions. Downtime period, it turns out, is also dependent on a patient’s willpower applied on the following practices aiding recovery:
- Breathing deeply – Breathing the entire diaphragm-abdomen area in and out unclouds the lungs, preventing pneumonia to set in where the lungs have accumulated fluids from the body’s extended period of lying flat in bed.
- Coughing – More of the chest secretions can be prevented by coughing.
- Spirometry – Medical experts, like Dr. Nir Hus, employ a spirometer to monitor a lung disease or the effects of medication in patients, among other functions.
- Turning – Repositioning oneself on the bed can do the lungs and pressure areas good.
- Exercising lower limbs – Depending on the surgery undergone, patients can bend their knees, or draw circles with the big toes or bicycle in the air to stimulate circulation.
The intensive care unit is another designated downtime area but for patients needing tight monitoring: those who have just survived major heart attacks, are on artificial ventilation, or are suffering acute renal failure included.
It is the duty of postoperative doctors, with which
Nir Hus finds himself a company, to connect these people on recovery to the life that they’ve fought for on that table surrounded by scrubs and scalpels.
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