John describes the support he received at QEF’s Care and Rehabilitation Centre to learn to swallow again after a prolonged period on a ventilator. The Speech and Language team and Physiotherapy teams worked to help him regain some strength in his legs and eat progressively complex foods. This culminated in his family being able to take him out to a restaurant for his birthday, which meant a lot to everyone involved and was a real sign of the progress he had made.
“I remember my son calling an ambulance for what I thought was a heavy chest infection. I was admitted to Homerton hospital where they put me on antibiotics which really helped. But I developed respiratory failure, which meant I was in intensive care on a ventilator for quite a long time.
It was a slow process to come off the ventilator. I went to the Lane Fox Unit in Redhill for 6 weeks and then my daughter chose QEF for me as the next step, to help me regain the ability to swallow after being on a ventilator for so long. I also need physiotherapy to help me with standing up as I have a lot of weakness in my legs.
Swallowing has been really difficult but I have made alot of progress. When I first came here all I could do was swallow sips of water and all my food was through a PEG feeding tube.
I’ve worked with an Enteral Feeding Specialist who works with QEF’s Dietician, as well as QEF’s Speech and Language Team. Over the last 6-8 weeks we have progressed from water to yoghurt, pureed food and now I am able to eat stage 5 food which is ‘moist minced’ food. I am eating 2 meals a day now in the dining room with others. I also drink my supplements now, so it’s just fluid and flushes through the feeding tube. I’m practical though – it will probably be a long time until I can eat the food I used to eat. But the food here is very good.
I have an appointment for another videoflouroscopy soon where they put dye in a liquid and see where it goes and if this looks good then I can progress to 3 meals a day.
I’ve also been working with the OT’s with various exercises to practice every day tasks, like making a sandwich and spreading the butter, making a coffee and taking things off the shelf. It’s been challenging to do.
This is a nice place with good facilities and the outside scenery – it can’t get much better. The staff are very friendly, very understanding and everyone says hello to me. My family visit me every other day. The team here have also supported me to go out for a meal for my birthday with my family, which really was good.”
