The interactive guide
Pick a chapter below. Tap any card to flip it over and see the answer on the back. Everything here comes straight from the printed trifold.
Many people will move through this room, and every one of them has a role. Knowing who is who tells you exactly where to bring each question. Tap a card to see what each person does.
With your person more than anyone else, often caring for only one or two patients. Your best source for what is happening right now. Learn their name each shift.
Lead the day-to-day plan and run rounds. Ask them about the big picture and what the team is watching for.
Doctors in training who work under the intensivists. Often the first doctor you see and the easiest to catch with day-to-day questions.
Manage the injuries themselves, including any surgeries. Ask them about the injuries, what has been repaired, and what comes next.
A cardiologist for the heart, a neurologist for the brain, a nephrologist for the kidneys. Ask which specialists are following your person, and write their names down.
Handles insurance, coverage questions, and planning for what comes after the ICU, including rehab placement. Loop them in early.
Here for the family, not just the patient. Parking, lodging, meals, and someone to sit with you. Asking for them is normal, not dramatic.
This is the most important chapter in the guide. Your person cannot speak for themselves right now, so someone should always be speaking for them. That someone is you.
If something seems off, say so. You know this person. The team knows medicine. Care is best when both speak up.
Keep asking until you understand the plan. You cannot advocate for a plan you cannot explain.
If your person seems in pain or uncomfortable, tell someone right away. Comfort counts as care.
Your mind will go blank. That is normal. Point to this list instead.
Doctors and nurses change shifts. Your notebook does not. You are not in the way. You are part of the record.
This chapter exists because the founder lived it. Tap each card.
Siblings react in opposite ways. Some cannot stay in the room. Some cannot leave it. Neither is wrong.
You are allowed to ask the team questions directly, even if your parents are the main contacts.
Find one job that is yours: the notebook, updating relatives, bringing food. A job keeps you steady.
Hard moments may stay with you. Talking about them later is strength, not weakness.
You cannot be in anyone's corner if you fall apart yourself. These are small, real things that keep a family standing through a long hospitalization.
Eat real meals. Sleep at home when you can. Take shifts so someone is always reachable.
Pick one person to send updates to who tells everyone else. Repeating hard news twenty times wears you down.
Step outside once a day, even for ten minutes. The hallway air is not the same as real air.
It is okay to laugh in the waiting room. It is okay to fall apart in the car. Both will happen.
Ask the social worker about family lounges, meal vouchers, parking passes, and lodging. That is what they are there for, and you do not need to be in crisis to ask.
Check on yourself too
Long hospital days raise your own heart rate, wreck your sleep, and make you forget to eat. If you wear a watch or use a phone that tracks steps and sleep, glance at it once a day the same way you glance at the bedside monitor. If your numbers are falling apart, that is your signal to hand the notebook to someone else for a shift, go home, shower, and sleep in a real bed.
Being in someone's corner is a long game. Rest is part of the job.
The machines feel overwhelming at first, but they are simpler than they look. Start with the monitor above the bed. Each color is telling you one thing.
Rate and rhythm (ECG). The big number is beats per minute.
SpO2, shown as a percentage. The team will tell you what range they want.
Measured through a small line in an artery, updating with every heartbeat.
Breaths per minute.
The printed trifold has every chapter on this page in a guide that folds to the size of a phone.
Get the free guide