Spanish for PICU nurses: the parent who thought a severity score was a survival percentage, the grandmother who spent three days in the waiting room because she didn’t know she could go to the bedside, and the father who was at the nurses’ station saying no one was helping his son during a sedation wean

Elena Vargas arrived at the pediatric ICU waiting room at eleven-seventeen on a Tuesday morning with her husband Marco and her mother-in-law. Their son Diego, six years old, had been admitted two days earlier with bacterial meningitis and a focal seizure that had not responded to the first two antiepileptics. He was intubated. He was sedated. He was in room 4, which was twelve steps from the waiting room door, which Elena did not know she was permitted to open.

The pediatric resident had spoken to Elena and Marco at the time of admission and again the following morning. His Spanish was limited and the hospital’s interpreter service had required a forty-minute wait; the conversations had happened in English, with Marco — whose English was better but still uneven — translating in real time. During the second conversation the resident had explained Diego’s PRISM-III score. He had been careful about it: “it’s a severity score, not a percentage, it measures how much support a patient needs, scores can be compared across units—” Elena had listened and nodded and understood the word score and the number 8 and not much else. Marco had translated what he could. The interpreter had not been present.

By the time Elena reached the waiting room she had reconstructed the exchange in her mind into the framework that made the most sense: the doctor had given Diego an 8 out of 10. She did not know yet that this was wrong. She sat in the chair nearest the wall and held her mother-in-law’s hand and did not eat the food from the cafeteria that her mother-in-law had bought, and she tried to understand what an 8 out of 10 meant for her son.

Three families in the PICU waiting area of a level II pediatric trauma center on a Tuesday afternoon. Elena Vargas, thirty-three, whose son Diego is intubated for bacterial meningitis and who has spent forty-eight hours believing that a severity score of 8 means an 8-out-of-10 chance of dying, quietly, in a waiting room chair, not eating and not sleeping and not saying this to anyone because she does not know who to say it to or whether saying it would make it worse. Lucía Hernández, forty-seven, whose granddaughter Sofía, eleven, is on day three of a PICU admission for diabetic ketoacidosis and who has not gone to the bedside a single time because the admission nurse told the family they would be notified when visitation was possible and she has been waiting, sleeping in the chair and eating almost nothing, for that notification since the first night. And Miguel and Carmen Castillo, whose son Nico, eight, is being weaned from propofol after a post-appendectomy complication, and who arrived at the bedside during an emergence delirium event: Nico is writhing, calling “mamá mamá” while Carmen is standing three feet away unable to reach him, and Miguel is at the nurses’ station for the second time in fifteen minutes saying his son is in pain and no one is doing anything about it.

The mother who thought the severity score was a probability

The PICU social worker who came to the waiting room on Tuesday afternoon had been flagged by the charge nurse: the Vargas family had not asked about Diego since the morning rounds update, had not come to the family meeting offered at two o’clock, and had not been to the bedside since admission. The social worker found Elena sitting with her mother-in-law in the same chairs they had been in that morning. Marco was standing by the window looking at his phone.

She sat down. She asked, in Spanish, how they were doing. Elena said they were waiting. She asked what they were waiting for. Elena looked at Marco, then said: “A ver cómo sale el día. Si el número sube o baja.”

The social worker asked which number.

“El puntaje que le dieron. El ocho. El doctor dijo que es una escala de uno a diez. ¿Si sube significa que está peor?”

The social worker went to the bedside nurse. The bedside nurse came to the waiting room with her. She sat down across from Elena and Marco and introduced herself and asked Elena directly what she understood about Diego’s score.

Elena explained. She had been given a number, eight out of ten. She understood this to mean an 80 percent probability of something — she was not sure if it was the probability of dying or the probability of survival. She had been afraid to ask because asking felt like naming something she could not name. She had been watching the waiting room clock for two days.

The nurse did not move immediately to correct the error. She listened until Elena had finished. Then she said:

“Gracias por decirme eso. Quiero explicarle algo sobre ese número que creo que va a cambiar un poco lo que ha estado pensando.”

She paused.

“El PRISM — ese es el nombre de la escala — no es una predicción. No es un porcentaje de sobrevivencia ni de que algo malo pase. Es una herramienta que los médicos usan para medir cuánto apoyo necesita un niño cuando llega a intensivos: cuántos medicamentos, cuánta atención, qué tan enfermo está. Un puntaje alto significa que Diego necesitó mucho apoyo cuando llegó. No es un número sobre lo que va a pasar.”

Elena was very still.

“Entonces — el ocho no significa que tiene un ochenta por ciento de morir.”

“No. No significa eso.”

Elena put her hand over her mouth. Marco looked up from his phone. The nurse waited.

“¿Por qué nadie nos explicó eso?”

“El médico lo explicó en inglés y no hablaba español bien. Eso fue un error de comunicación de nuestra parte — no de usted. Lo siento.”

She did not continue with the correction immediately. She stayed with that for a moment. Then:

“Le quiero decir ahora cómo sí medimos cómo va Diego — las cosas que sí nos dicen dónde está y hacia dónde va. ¿Me da un momento?”

Elena nodded.

The nurse explained what the team was actually tracking: the neurological exam — “cada mañana revisamos cómo responde Diego cuando le hablamos, cómo se mueven sus ojos, si responde a estímulos; esas respuestas han mejorado desde el primer día”; the EEG — “el estudio que mide la actividad eléctrica del cerebro; el último estudio mostró menos actividad anormal que el primero — eso es una mejora que podemos medir”; the fever — “la temperatura ha estado normal por dieciocho horas; la infección responde al antibiótico”; and the conversation the team had had that morning: “esta mañana en rondas el equipo habló de reducir la sedación en las próximas veinticuatro horas si Diego sigue igual de estable. Eso significa que el equipo cree que está suficientemente estable para dar ese paso.”

Marco had put his phone away. Elena’s mother-in-law was holding Elena’s wrist.

“¿Podemos ir a verlo?”

“Sí. Pueden ir ahora. Los acompaño.”

Before they left the waiting room, the nurse gave them a brief preview of what they would see in room 4: the breathing tube in Diego’s mouth and what it was doing (“la máquina está respirando por él mientras el cuerpo descansa — el tubo no le duele, los medicamentos lo tienen dormido”); the central line at his neck (“un tubito en la vena del cuello para los medicamentos — parece más serio de lo que es”); the monitors and what the numbers meant (“frecuencia cardíaca, presión, oxígeno — le voy a decir cómo deben verse para Diego para que usted pueda entender lo que ve en la pantalla”); and what was possible (“puede hablarle, puede tocarle la mano. Los estudios nos dicen que los niños sedados escuchan la voz de sus papás aunque no puedan responder”).

They walked into room 4. Elena went to the left side of the bed, where Diego’s right hand was visible at the edge of the blanket. She picked it up without saying anything. She held it for a long time.

The charge nurse documented: family to bedside 15:42. First bedside visit, day 3 of admission. Communication gap re: PRISM score identified and corrected by bedside RN. Interpreter requested for family meeting at 17:00.

At the family meeting at five o’clock, with an interpreter present, the attending explained Diego’s clinical course in full. Elena had one question she had written down on the back of a hospital parking receipt: “¿Cuando bajen la sedación, él va a poder reconocerme?” When you lower the sedation, will he be able to recognize me?

The attending said they expected so. They could not promise a timeline. What they could say was that his brain was showing less abnormal activity with each EEG, that the fever had broken, and that the antibiotic was working. Elena wrote this down on the same parking receipt.

The grandmother who waited three days for permission that was never coming

Sofía Hernández was eleven. She had been admitted to the PICU on a Sunday evening in diabetic ketoacidosis — newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes, DKA as presentation, pH 7.08, bicarbonate 6, glucose 680. The admission had been urgent. The family — her grandmother Lucía, who was her primary caregiver, and two aunts — had arrived in the middle of the resuscitation and been directed to the waiting room by an admissions coordinator who had said, in a mix of English and basic Spanish, that they would be informed when Sofía was stable enough for family to visit.

Lucía had understood this to mean: there will be a call or a knock on the waiting room door when we have decided you may come in. She had been waiting for that call for three days.

She had not asked. She had assumed the medical team knew she was there and would come for her when it was time. She had been sleeping upright in the waiting room chair and eating from the vending machine in the hallway and spending her days in a room she could not leave for fear of missing the notification. Her two nieces had been rotating coverage so Lucía could go to the bathroom without leaving the waiting room unattended.

The social worker discovered this during a Wednesday afternoon round of the waiting room. She asked Lucía how Sofía was doing. Lucía said she didn’t know — she hadn’t seen her yet. The social worker asked when the last update from the medical team was. Lucía said Sunday night, from the admissions coordinator, who had said she would be called.

The social worker went directly to the PICU charge nurse. The charge nurse came to the waiting room herself.

She sat down across from Lucía. She said:

“Señora Hernández, quiero pedirle perdón. Nadie debía haberla dejado tres días sin ir al cuarto de Sofía. Quiero aclarar algo de inmediato: las puertas de la UCI pediátrica están abiertas para usted en cualquier momento del horario de visita. No hay una llamada que estábamos esperando darle. No hay un nivel de estabilidad que Sofía tiene que alcanzar primero. Lo que le dijeron el domingo — que le avisaríamos cuando pudiera pasar — quería decir que la llamaríamos si había un cambio importante. No quería decir que tenía que esperar permiso. Ese fue un malentendido que fue nuestra responsabilidad prevenir. Lo siento mucho.”

Lucía was very quiet. Then: “¿Ella sabe que estoy aquí?” Does she know I’m here?

“No lo sabe de la manera en que usted sabe las cosas cuando está despierta. Pero los niños que están sedados responden a las voces que conocen — la frecuencia cardíaca cambia, el ritmo cambia. Hay evidencia de que escuchan aunque no puedan decirlo. Ella ha estado en ese cuarto sin escuchar su voz por tres días. Quiero cambiar eso ahora mismo, si está lista.”

“Estoy lista.”

Before entering room 6, the charge nurse stopped in the hallway and gave Lucía the preview she had not been given at admission. She went through each piece of equipment systematically — not all at once, but one at a time, with a pause after each for Lucía to absorb it.

The breathing tube: “Sofía tiene un tubo en la boca que va a sus pulmones. La máquina está respirando por ella mientras el cuerpo se recupera. No le duele — los medicamentos la tienen dormida. El tubo hace un sonido de aire — eso es normal, no significa que algo está mal.”

The IV lines: “Hay varias venas con tubitos — uno en el brazo, uno más grande en el cuello. Son para los medicamentos y para medir la presión directamente en la sangre. Se ven más serios de lo que son — no interfieren con que la toque o le hable.”

The monitors: “La pantalla muestra números todo el tiempo. Los números cambian a cada segundo — eso es normal, no significa que algo está cambiando para mal. El que más voy a revisar yo es el oxígeno — ese número para Sofía debe estar por encima de noventa y cuatro; ahora está en noventa y ocho.”

The alarm question: “Los monitores tienen alarmas que suenan a veces. Si una alarma suena mientras usted está en el cuarto, no se asuste — vengo a revisar, y la mayoría de las veces es una alarma de posición, no una emergencia. Si algo fuera urgente, yo ya estoy en camino antes de que la alarma suene.”

And what to do: “Puede hablarle, puede tocarle la mano o el pie, puede decirle que está aquí. Eso es todo. No tiene que hacer nada especial. Su voz es exactamente lo que ella necesita.”

They walked into room 6. Lucía stood for a moment in the doorway, taking in the room — the ventilator, the monitor screens, the IV pole with its three bags, Sofía’s face half-obscured by the tape holding the breathing tube in place. Then she walked to the left side of the bed, leaned down, and said very quietly into Sofía’s ear: “Mija. Soy yo. Estoy aquí.”

The bedside monitor showed Sofía’s heart rate at 88. Over the next ninety seconds it climbed to 96, then settled at 91. The nurse documented this without comment. Lucía did not notice the numbers. She was holding her granddaughter’s hand and telling her what she had eaten for breakfast on Sunday morning, the last morning before all this — eggs and rice and a little bit of avocado — and whether she had liked it, and that there was more where that came from, when she got home.

Before leaving the room the charge nurse made one more clarification:

“Las horas de visita son de ocho de la mañana a las ocho de la noche. Usted puede entrar y salir durante esas horas sin pedirle permiso a nadie — solo lávese las manos en el dispensador de la entrada. Si hay una visita médica o un procedimiento, le pedimos que espere cinco minutos en el pasillo y la hacemos pasar de inmediato cuando terminamos. Si algo cambia en el estado de Sofía — si necesita que usted esté — la llamamos de inmediato, a cualquier hora de la noche. Eso es lo que queríamos decir el domingo.”

Lucía came back that evening at six-fifteen. She came back the following morning at eight-oh-three. She brought a small photograph — Sofía at a quinceañera the previous October, laughing at something outside the frame — and taped it to the bedside tray table where Sofía could see it if she opened her eyes.

Sofía was extubated on Thursday afternoon. Her first words, according to the nursing note, were: “¿Dnde está mi abuela?” Where is my grandmother? Lucía was in the waiting room, which she now understood was a place to wait between visits, not to wait for permission. She was there in four minutes.

The father at the nurses’ station during the sedation wean

Nico Castillo had been admitted for a perforated appendix with post-operative ileus that required a return to the OR and a two-day PICU stay for hemodynamic monitoring and pain control. He was eight. He had been on propofol for thirty-six hours. The wean had started that morning.

His parents, Miguel and Carmen, had arrived at visiting hours at nine-thirty and been told at the nurses’ station that they could go in. The nurse who was managing Nico’s wean had given them a brief orientation at the bedside — in English, with basic Spanish mixed in — and had told them she would be checking in frequently. She was at a computer at the nursing station, eight feet away, with a direct line of sight to Nico’s room.

At nine-fifty-two Nico began to emerge. The propofol had been reduced to a minimal infusion. He started with a slow lateral head movement, then eye opening without tracking, then a reach toward his mouth where the nasogastric tube ran. Carmen stepped toward the bed. The reach became more insistent. Then the bilateral arm movement, the writhing, the pull at the central line in his right internal jugular. And then: “Mamá. Mamá. Mamá.”

Carmen was at the rail. She reached for his hand. He pulled away and called for her again.

Miguel went to the nurses’ station at nine-fifty-four. The nurse was already watching the telemetry. She was on her way to the room before Miguel finished his first sentence. Miguel followed her back.

In the room: Nico still writhing, the central line tape pulling at his neck, the arm restraint now triggered by the motor activity. The nurse checked the central line insertion site — intact, no displacement — noted Nico’s CAPD score, his vital signs, his oxygen saturation at ninety-six. She adjusted the propofol infusion by two micrograms per kilogram per minute. Then she turned to Miguel before doing anything else.

“Señor Castillo — lo que ve en este momento tiene un nombre. Antes de hacer cualquier otra cosa, quiero explicarle exactamente lo que está pasando y lo que estamos haciendo. Nico está bien — los números están donde deben estar. Pero entiendo que no lo parece.”

Miguel was standing at the foot of the bed with his hands on the rail. He nodded.

“Lo que está pasando se llama delirium de emergencia. Ocurre cuando los medicamentos sedantes empiezan a salir del sistema y el cerebro todavía no ha terminado de despertar. El cerebro está en una especie de confusión mientras hace esa transición. Es incómodo de ver, pero es una etapa normal del proceso de recuperación.”

“¿Pero está en dolor? Está jalando —”

“El jalar la vía no es porque le duele la vía. En este estado de confusión, el cerebro no está procesando el dolor de la misma manera que cuando está completamente despierto. Está jalando porque el movimiento es una respuesta del sistema nervioso mientras despierta — no porque esté decidiendo que quiere quitarse algo. La diferencia es importante: si fuera dolor que él pudiera sentir, los signos vitales responderían de una manera específica. Lo que veo en la pantalla es el patrón del delirium, no el patrón del dolor.”

“¿Y el ‘mamá’?”

Carmen had asked this. She was at the left rail, close to Nico’s shoulder.

“En el delirium de emergencia, palabras como ‘mamá’ y ‘papá’ son de las primeras que salen porque son las más profundas en el cerebro — las que más repitió de niño, las que están más grabadas. No significa que la esté buscando con el mismo propósito que cuando está despierto. Significa que el cerebro está activando lo que conoce mientras trata de orientarse. Es una buena señal: significa que está emergiendo.”

“¿Entonces qué hacemos?”

“Hay algo que ustedes pueden hacer que es más útil que cualquier medicamento adicional que yo le pueda dar en este momento. La voz de ustedes es lo que más ayuda al cerebro a orientarse mientras despierta. No para decirle que se calme — eso no funciona en el delirium porque el cerebro no puede procesar esa instrucción todavía. Lo que funciona es dar información simple: dónde está, qué está pasando, que ustedes están aquí.”

She turned to Miguel specifically.

“Puede decirle: ‘Nico, soy papá. Estás en el hospital. Estás bien. Estoy aquí.’ Nada más que eso. Voz tranquila, repetido. No tiene que hacer nada más.”

Miguel looked at the nurse for a moment. Then he moved to the right rail, where Nico’s hand was closest to him. He put his hand over Nico’s and leaned down. His voice when he spoke was quieter than the nurse had expected from a man who had been at the nurses’ station twice in fifteen minutes.

“Nico. Soy papá. Estás en el hospital. Estás bien. Estoy aquí.”

Nico’s head turned toward the sound. The writhing continued for another three minutes. Then it began to ease. The pull at the central line slowed, became intermittent, then stopped. The eyes, still unfocused, oriented toward Miguel’s face. Not tracking — but pointing in the direction of the sound.

Carmen had moved to the left rail. She was holding Nico’s left arm at the forearm, not restraining, just there.

“Nico. Mamá está aquí. Estás en el hospital. Vas a estar bien.”

Over the next twelve minutes, the agitation settled in stages — not linearly, with two brief re-escalations when an alarm on the adjacent room’s monitor sounded and startled Nico back into a motor burst — but progressively. At ten-eighteen Nico’s eyes were tracking. At ten-twenty-three he reached toward Carmen’s hand intentionally and she let him take it.

“¿Papá?” His voice was hoarse from the nasogastric tube.

“Aquí estoy.”

The nurse was at the computer documenting the wean protocol. She noted: family verbal reorientation protocol used; emergence delirium resolved at 10:18; agitation grade 3 on CAPD at onset, grade 0 at 10:23; no additional sedation required. She explained to Miguel and Carmen what they had just done:

“Lo que hicieron ustedes es exactamente lo que un equipo entero de enfermeros no puede hacer tan bien: le dieron a Nico la voz que su cerebro ya conoce. Eso es lo que lo orientó. Yo manejé los medicamentos y los números. Ustedes manejaron la parte que más importa.”

She also explained what to expect for the next twenty-four hours: “El delirium puede volver en episodios mientras los medicamentos terminan de salir del sistema — especialmente si hay un estímulo inesperado como un sonido fuerte o una luz. Si lo ven ponerse agitado de nuevo, lo mismo: voz tranquila, información simple, manos. Avísenme — no se queden solos con eso. Estoy a ocho metros de este cuarto.”

Miguel nodded. He had not let go of Nico’s hand.

“Cuando fui a la estación a decirle que nadie hacía nada —”

“Usted no sabía lo que estaba viendo. Yo debía haber explicado este proceso antes de que empezara. Si lo hubiera explicado, no habría necesitado ir a buscarme.”

Nico was transferred to the pediatric floor that afternoon. The nursing handoff note included: family highly engaged and effective at verbal reorientation during emergence; counsel on normal post-ICU disorientation patterns before transfer; Spanish primary language — request interpreter for floor team orientation.

What these three conversations have in common

Elena had not misunderstood the severity score because she was inattentive. She had been given a technical term in English with no interpreter, the explanation had been accurate but beyond her English comprehension, and she had reconstructed what she could in the waiting room using the framework available to her. The framework available to her was: a number on a scale is a prediction. That is a reasonable inference. It was wrong about PRISM-III. No one knew she had made it until the social worker asked what she was waiting for.

Lucía had not been passive or indifferent. She had been extraordinarily faithful to what she understood the rules to be: she would be called when it was permissible to come in, and she was not going to violate a rule she understood to be protecting her granddaughter. She had been sleeping in a chair for three days. She had not left the waiting room. She had not eaten properly. She was following the instruction she had been given, because she trusted the institution to tell her when that instruction changed. The institution had forgotten to tell her there was no such instruction.

Miguel had not been escalating for escalation’s sake. He had a child who was calling for his mother while his mother was standing next to him and could not reach him, who was pulling at a line in his neck, and who appeared to be in distress that no one around him had named or explained. He had gone to the nurses’ station because that was the only action available to him in a situation where he had no information and no role. When he was given information and a role, he used them effectively and did not need to go to the nurses’ station again.

In all three cases the family was doing exactly what their understanding of the situation called for. The understanding was incomplete, or incorrect, or had never been given at all. The correction — in each case — required a nurse to stop and sit down and say: let me tell you what is actually happening, and let me make sure I understand what you think is happening, because those two things may not be the same.

In a PICU, with Spanish-speaking families, the gap between those two things is wider and more consequential than in most clinical settings. The equipment is more alarming. The clinical vocabulary is more specialized. The stakes feel higher because for these families they are. A parent who believes a severity score is a death probability lives forty-eight hours in a different reality than the one the medical team is working in. A grandmother who believes she is waiting for permission she will never receive loses three days at a bedside where her presence is clinically useful and emotionally essential. A father who believes no one is responding to his child’s distress is a father who cannot be present for his child, because all of his attention is on trying to get someone to respond.

The PICU nurse who works with Spanish-speaking families is not simply translating the admission orientation, the family meeting, the sedation wean explanation. She is preventing the parallel reality — the one the family is living in while the medical team is working in another — from taking hold and determining what the family does for the next twenty-four or forty-eight or seventy-two hours.

Related clinical contexts and Spanish nursing communication appear across this library: NICU conversations, including the parent who interpreted “stable” as normal and the family that had not done kangaroo care because no one had said they could, are covered in Spanish for NICU nurses. Postpartum ICU conversations, including intrusive thought screening and the patient whose clot was not reported because she had been told bleeding was expected, appear in Spanish for postpartum nurses. The broader framework for high-risk obstetric Spanish communication — including preeclampsia symptom sweeps and preterm labor contraction assessment — is in Spanish for antepartum nurses. Emergence and PACU conversations, including the patient who woke from general anesthesia not knowing where he was, are in Spanish for PACU nurses. For pain assessment conversations where the reported score does not match the clinical picture, see pain scale in Spanish for nurses.

Clinical Spanish for the conversations in this post

For severity score explanation:

• «El PRISM no es un porcentaje de sobrevivencia — es una escala que mide cuánto apoyo necesita un niño cuando llega. No predice lo que va a pasar.» — PRISM is not a survival percentage — it’s a scale that measures how much support a child needs on arrival. It does not predict what will happen.
• «Lo que sí nos dice cómo va su hijo es la evaluación neurológica, la respuesta al antibiótico, el electroencefalograma. Esas son las cosas que quiero explicarle.» — What does tell us how your son is doing is the neurological exam, the response to the antibiotic, the EEG. Those are the things I want to explain to you.
• «El equipo habló esta mañana de reducir la sedación — eso significa que creen que está suficientemente estable para dar ese paso.» — The team discussed this morning reducing the sedation — that means they believe he is stable enough for that step.
• «Ese fue un error de comunicación de nuestra parte. Lo siento.» — That was a communication error on our part. I’m sorry.

For bedside access clarification:

• «Las puertas de la UCI están abiertas para usted durante el horario de visita. No hay una llamada que estábamos esperando darle.» — The ICU doors are open to you during visiting hours. There is no call we were waiting to give you.
• «Antes de entrar quiero explicarle lo que va a ver para que no la tome por sorpresa.» — Before going in, I want to explain what you will see so it does not surprise you.
• «Hay un tubo en la boca que va a los pulmones. La máquina está respirando por ella. El tubo no le duele — los medicamentos la tienen dormida.» — There is a tube in the mouth going to the lungs. The machine is breathing for her. The tube does not hurt her — the medications keep her asleep.
• «Puede hablarle, puede tocarle la mano. Los niños sedados responden a las voces que conocen.» — You can talk to her, you can hold her hand. Sedated children respond to familiar voices.
• «Los números en la pantalla cambian a cada segundo — eso es normal, no significa que algo está cambiando para mal.» — The numbers on the screen change every second — that is normal, it does not mean something is getting worse.

For sedation wean and emergence delirium:

• «Lo que ve en este momento se llama delirium de emergencia. Ocurre cuando los medicamentos sedantes empiezan a salir del sistema.» — What you are seeing right now is called emergence delirium. It occurs when the sedation medications start leaving the system.
• «El jalar la vía no es porque le duele. Está jalando porque es una respuesta del sistema nervioso mientras despierta.» — The pulling at the line is not because it hurts. He is pulling because it is a nervous system response while waking up.
• «El ‘mamá’ es de las primeras palabras que salen porque están más grabadas en el cerebro. Es una buena señal: significa que está emergiendo.» — The “mama” is one of the first words that comes out because it is most deeply encoded in the brain. It’s a good sign: it means he is emerging.
• «Puede decirle: ‘Nico, soy papá, estás en el hospital, estás bien, estoy aquí.’ Voz tranquila, repetido. No tiene que hacer nada más.» — You can say: “Nico, I’m dad, you’re in the hospital, you’re okay, I’m here.” Calm voice, repeated. You don’t need to do anything else.
• «El delirium puede volver en episodios. Si lo ven ponerse agitado de nuevo: voz tranquila, información simple, manos. Avísenme.» — The delirium may return in episodes. If you see him become agitated again: calm voice, simple information, hands. Let me know.
• «Yo debía haber explicado este proceso antes de que empezara. Si lo hubiera explicado, usted no habría necesitado ir a buscarme.» — I should have explained this process before it started. If I had explained it, you wouldn’t have needed to come looking for me.