Back again

Guess what. I ended up at the hospital yet again.

The district nurse came. As I’ve finished my immediate course of chemo, she only had to do line care. There was no need to take much blood as no tests are needed for the next session. It’s questionable if there’s even going to be another session.

She duly took off the old dressing. She then tried to take out a little blood, just sufficient to show the PICC line was still flowing smoothly before she flushed it. Nothing happened.

 She asked me if they did anything different at the hospital. I told her they sometimes insert just a tiny bit of flush fluid to soften the blood. She tried again. No success.

I threw around my arms, shook my head, all to try to make sure my blood would flow faster. Still nothing.

She rang the hospital. They suggested she tried what I’d already advised. As that wasn’t successful I was told to rush in. The fear was that the blood had a clot in. If she squirted in all the flush without taking that little bit of blood out it might push that clot into my heart causing a heart attack. So, once more, we charged into the hospital abandoning our cleaner & gardener to lock the place up securely before they left.

At Oncology at the hospital, I was sent straight to the treatment room. I told the nurse what had already been done. The exterior of the line & my arm had been cleaned, a new nozzle had been put on the PICC line, a new dressing & tape had been placed. The hospital nurse carefully examined the line for no severe kinks. No. This district nurse had done a good job of that. The hospital nurse then tried to take out blood. Nothing. She tried to put in a little flush. It wouldn’t go in, some sort of an obstruction. She went to get a more senior, higher trained & longer served, nurse to try.

The senior nurse had experience of me in the past, when I was on bisphosphonates. He wanted notification of when I was coming for my next dose so he could go on holiday to avoid the difficulty of getting a needle into my veins. It had taken him half an hour.

Anyhow he had a look. Nothing went in, nothing came out. His conclusion was that the PICC line had probably moved inside my vein. I told him how the previous week the district nurse had accidentally pulled out a millimetre or so of line when she was cleaning it. She’d pushed it back in & the PICC line had worked since without difficulty. He suspected the obstruction was in fact the PICC line lying right on the vein wall, with the result when they tried to pull blood out, the vein wall was just sucked in, closing over the end of the line. He thought I should maybe have an X-ray to check the line was still safely positioned. He was just about to get up to arrange this when he fumbled the equipment in his hand. He heard a click as he caught it. He thought he’d have another go. Everything went smoothly. A few millilitres of blood out, a syringe of flush fluid in.

We’re all now hoping the conclusion of the meetings on Friday is that I’m to have an op & the PICC line can be removed. It would be a relief for all nursing staff as well as us. Certainly if the line is to remain in longer, next week’s clean will be done at the hospital as I’ve got two appointments, three with line care/removal, there that morning. The hospital does seem to manage easier, possibly just because they have more practice with PICC lines than the district nurses do.