I agreed to a tracheotomy before my cancer surgery “in case I need it”. Turns out I didn’t need it but I had nurses that apparently didn’t know how to keep it clean, had awfully come up a few times for blood pouring out, it was awful. I got PTSD when I think about it. The doctors didn’t care.
The thing is, I didn’t have swelling and did not need it. They could have taken out the second tube but they refused.
The day I left the hospital the nurses had to find instructions for me to take care of the opening as they told me all their other patients went home with them. They said the doctor told them to ask me if I wanted to keep it in, and as I couldn’t speak, I gave them the finger.
That’s terrible! I hope you are ok now and that you sued the (blank) out of them.
I am uncertain but I think that most people are unaware that if one has a ‘Trach,’ once extubated, the wound in most cases will close and the flesh around the former ‘hole’ will repair relatively quickly. It takes just a few days for things to clear up completely.
I have seen many former ‘Trach Patients’ where the wounds are virtually indiscernible unless serious inspections are made. I once met a woman who had been ‘trached’ on 5 different occasions.
The notion that a Nurse would not know how to provide proper care for a ‘trach’ seems impossible to me.