Delirium management care program

I had just been on tour with my band in the USA. During the tour, I started to feel a bit sickly, which got worse over several days. I first tried to treat the whole thing with medication from the pharmacy - unfortunately without success. I then played a show in the evening and went straight to the hotel and took a shower afterwards. I caught legionella there, as I now know. The next day I still didn't feel any better, on the contrary, I even had blood in my stool.

So me and my bandmates decided it was time to go to hospital. When I arrived at the emergency room, I had to wait a long time, about 8 hours. The doctors' first assumption was Covid-19 with pneumonia. I was then put on infusions and had an MRI.

From that point on, my memories started to blur.

From what my colleagues and my partner told me, I know that I was in that hospital for 5 days with severe pneumonia. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital in Switzerland. As I know today, I was brought to Switzerland by Rega - I was in an induced coma for 13 days. My lungs failed in the meantime, which is why I was intubated.

Yes and no, I do remember having some extreme dreams that felt extremely real to me at the time.

• In one dream, for example, I was convinced that Rega had left me on a bridge in Frankfurt.
• Or that I was on my way to Las Vegas in a private jet with rich strangers.
• Or that I was buried under cardboard in a garage and couldn't move.

I also believed, for example, that I had read something Russian on an infusion in hospital and from then on I was convinced for a night that I was Russian myself and that I was in Russia.

I was also very suspicious, for example I wanted to sue the hospital and kept asking to see the head doctor. I complained that I had been treated badly. But it all happened in my dreams and had nothing to do with reality. At that moment, however, I was unable to separate dreams from reality.

It was definitely my partner and my parents. My partner kept a diary the whole time, which helped me to close the gaps in my memory as well as possible. Also the nurses and doctors, who explained my situation to me again and again in a calm, very matter-of-fact tone.

I think it's important to help them get back to reality and explain that what's happening is real. As the person affected, you may not yet be able to understand what has happened, but you do realize what is happening. It is certainly important that relatives and hospital staff always keep this in mind. In addition, people with delirium should not be confirmed in their dreams. Instead, an attempt should be made to explain as objectively as possible what is actually happening.

The whole experience has certainly changed my perspective on life to some extent - but that's a rather positive thing for me. I've been able to come to terms with what happened and fortunately I don't have any bad feelings about what I experienced.