Home recovery after near drowning.
I'm currently writing a story that deals with the aftermath of a near drowning incident. I don't want to deal with a lot of hospital scenes in this one, so it's pretty much going to be a "recovering at home" story - lucky character gets to avoid the super dangerous hospitalization-worthy complications. *g*
The problem is, there's a fair amount of information on the really deadly complications, and what's likely to happen at the hospital. But what I could really use are few more details of potential non-life-threatening symptoms that the person's likely to be dealing with after release from the hospital. I can find a whole lot on the "This is very likely to kill you, get to a hospital immediately" complications, but less on the... well, normal aftereffects of near drowning over the course of the next few days. I've got a timeline for release to go home and follow-up appointments, and a general idea that lung infections and/or inflammation are fairly common, so a patient's likely to be given some variation of antibiotics, cortisone, or steroids to combat or prevent that. Other than that... not much.
Between the sketchy details I can find and my imagination I can fill in a fairly good picture, but it'd be really nice to have a better overview of the most likely issues. Basically, for plot purposes some noticeable aftereffects = good, eventual need for hospitalization = bad. Anyone have some experience or resources they could share?
Oh! And this would be a saltwater near-drowning, not freshwater.
The problem is, there's a fair amount of information on the really deadly complications, and what's likely to happen at the hospital. But what I could really use are few more details of potential non-life-threatening symptoms that the person's likely to be dealing with after release from the hospital. I can find a whole lot on the "This is very likely to kill you, get to a hospital immediately" complications, but less on the... well, normal aftereffects of near drowning over the course of the next few days. I've got a timeline for release to go home and follow-up appointments, and a general idea that lung infections and/or inflammation are fairly common, so a patient's likely to be given some variation of antibiotics, cortisone, or steroids to combat or prevent that. Other than that... not much.
Between the sketchy details I can find and my imagination I can fill in a fairly good picture, but it'd be really nice to have a better overview of the most likely issues. Basically, for plot purposes some noticeable aftereffects = good, eventual need for hospitalization = bad. Anyone have some experience or resources they could share?
Oh! And this would be a saltwater near-drowning, not freshwater.