sign language alphabet

[darkoshi]

random thought:
It must be horrible to be intubated and not even able to communicate something as simple as "I am very cold, please give me blankets".

It would be good to learn to finger-spell the alphabet signs, so one would still have a way to communicate that didn't require pen&paper or keyboard, etc.
But then again, I wonder how many medical professionals are able to recognize and understand it?

.

And then again, if they had to strap down your hands to keep you from pulling out the tube like they did with Qiao after his car accident, that wouldn't help much. At least they keep you mostly in a daze so maybe you don't even feel things like being cold.

Comments

[darkoshi]

I tried using a notepad and pen with Qiao too. Sometimes it worked, usually simple one or two word things he was trying to tell the nurses. The rest was indecipherable or didn't make much sense even when I could figure out the words. I think he wasn't able to separate his dreams/hallucinations from reality. I asked him later if he had any memory of that time, and he didn't.

I'm mixing up some things in my memory now myself, but I still have notes from back then. The tube he pulled out one of the times was a feeding tube that went in through the nose, not the breathing tube. But he might have pulled that one out too.

My memories of hospitals, especially the pre/post surgery areas, are also of them being very cold. Which is part of what sparked that thought in the first place.