After a week, five different iv sites and having my veins so irritated and raw that I am literally screaming in pain the doctors decided to put a picc line in. Now picc stands for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter, but I like to refer to it as my Personal Instrument for Causing Confusion. Basically it is a tube that runs through a vain from my upper arm to my heart. I told Shamus he could have saved time on dating me because apparently this picc line was the key to my heart.
From this line there are two separate lines that attach to this picc, one for my food bad and the other is for saline and medications. Every night they have to change the tubing for the line that gives me food, and every night it takes at least two nurses to figure out what goes where. I know that eventually I will grow tired of watching them struggle with this complex system of tubes and pumps but right now it's kind of amusing.
The real show is actually when they have to do the dressing change on the site. Anywhere from three to five nurses come in with this big binder full of instructions and step by step they read as I lay there and watch them change the site. It feels like they are back in school and I am their practise patient.
Thing have gotten to a point where if my IV pump starts beeping I know how to fix the problem and what buttons to push. I know the rate and volume of every bag that gets hooked up and soon I'm sure the nurses could just leave the items for the tube change and I could do it myself. Now if I could only learn how to keep food down...one thing at a time I guess.
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