Made by a family that has been here
Right now, that someone is you. In Their Corner is a free guide for families with a loved one in the intensive care unit. It walks you through what you are seeing, who is caring for your person, and how to speak up for the one you love.
How can we help right now?
The first days, mapped
Every ICU stay is different, but the shape of the first days is more predictable than it feels. Here is the honest version.
The team stabilizes first and explains second. The room is loud and full of people. Your only job is to be reachable. Learn the room when you are ready.
Stage 2Learn your nurse's name. Pick one person to send family updates. Start the notebook, even if the first page is just the date and three words.
Stage 3Rounds happen every morning. Bring the five questions. Track small changes. Eat real meals and step outside once a day, even for ten minutes.
Stage 4Recovery does not end at the ICU door. Ask the case manager about rehab early, and know that hard memories after are normal, and talking about them is strength.
What is inside
The guide covers four things every family needs on day one. Each one gets its own section, written in plain words, with no medical background required.
Every color on the bedside monitor is telling you one thing. Green is the heart. Blue is oxygen. Red is blood pressure. Yellow is breathing. We break down each one.
Explore the monitorMany people move through an ICU room, and every one of them has a role. Knowing who is who tells you exactly where to bring each question.
Meet the teamYour person cannot speak for themselves right now, so someone should always be speaking for them. That someone is you. We give you the questions and the notebook to do it.
Learn to advocateSome family members cannot stay in the room. Some cannot leave it. Neither is wrong. The guide has a whole section for brothers, sisters, and taking care of yourself.
Read the tipsWhy this guide exists
My older brother spent weeks in an intensive care unit after a serious accident. My family learned that unit the hard way, one alarm and one shift change at a time. While some of my siblings could not stay in the room, I could not leave it. I sat beside his bed with a notebook and wrote down everything: the medications, the numbers, the small changes, the questions I was too afraid to ask out loud.
My brother is still fighting his way back in rehab, and the notebook is still going. It became a lesson, and the lesson became this guide.
Read the full story
Learn by doing
Reading about the ICU is one thing. Practicing before you walk in is another. Both tools are free and work on your phone.
Every role on the care team, every question for rounds, and every sibling tip lives on a card you can flip. Tap the front to see the answer on the back. It works like flashcards, because that is the fastest way to learn something new under stress.
Open the flip cardsA full bedside monitor with live waveforms for heart rate, oxygen, blood pressure, breathing, and more. Hover over any vital and it tells you what the number means, what range the team usually wants, and what to do when an alarm sounds.
Try the monitorThe green line on that monitor is a language, and families are never taught to read it. Our tools change that. The pulse you see here is the same shape drawn on every screen in every unit: the small wave, the sharp spike, the recovery. By the time you leave this site, that shape will mean something to you.
In Their Corner is one family handing its notebook to the next. Every page is free, nothing tracks you, and nothing here will ever try to sell you anything. On the worst week of your life, the last thing you need is a paywall.
Who this is for
Parents, partners, brothers, sisters, grandparents, best friends. If someone you love is in an intensive care unit, this guide was written for you. It does not require any medical background. It does not talk down to you. It just hands you what our family wishes someone had handed us on day one.
And if you are the person who cannot stay in the room, this is for you too. There is no wrong way to love someone through this.
Hospital placement
In Their Corner was written for the kind of unit where my family lived for weeks. Our first goal is placing the printed guide in the ICU waiting area at Mount Sinai South Nassau on Long Island, reviewed by the nurses who work there, so it reaches families on their hardest day. The printed guide reserves a space for the hospital's logo upon adoption.
From there, we want to expand to more hospitals, one unit at a time. If you work at a hospital and want the guide in your unit, we would love to hear from you.
About the partnership
Follow along
Guide updates, new resources, and where to find the trifold.
Free, always
Enter your email and we will send you the complete printable trifold, free. Print it, fold it, and bring it to the hospital. Or keep it on your phone.
Get the guide