After the ICU: Post-Intensive Care Syndrome Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe life after intensive care, for survivors and for the families who waited. Writers were in the ICU after sepsis, pneumonia, childbirth, a new diabetes diagnosis, heart failure, accidents and illnesses that never got a clear name; one spent three weeks on ECMO. They include a self-employed roofer in Atlanta with no sick pay, a sheep farmer in Auckland who now sleeps with the lamp on, a bookkeeper in Halifax whose payroll would not add up, a long-haul truck driver facing a licence review, a Deaf printer with no interpreter at his bedside, a new mother in Lagos who missed her baby's first weeks and a father in Leicester who still checks his daughter's breathing at night, with others from Karachi to Dubbo. The aftermath is specific: relearning to swallow and to hold a fork, a forgotten PIN at a hardware store, hair coming out in the shower, food that tasted of metal, feet that would not lift, a prayer in Ukrainian on waking. Some found a follow-up clinic, a diary kept by nurses or a room of fellow survivors; others went home with a folder and a leaflet about handwashing. Recovery here is uneven. Some writers are close to their old lives, while others, years on, still sit in the hospital parking lot before going in.

Who it's for

For ICU survivors puzzled by what came home with them, the husbands, wives, parents and children who sat in the waiting room, and health workers who want to see the months after discharge.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 281 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.