PICC Line - March 17

On Tuesday I had to go to Royal University Hospital to get my PICC line installed. First they put an IV into my arm and then wheeled me into the X-ray room. They injected a dye into the IV to help them locate a nice big vein. They cleaned my arm and draped some cloths over it. The Radiologist came in and he froze it. That part hurt the most because it really burns and then the burning spreads out in every direction. At some point they made a tiny incision and inserted this catheter into the vein using the ultrasound to guide it into place. It starts about ½ way up my bicep and goes all the way up my arm, loops around and ends up near my heart where the blood flows quickly. (kind of like an upside down U). There are two little lines coming out the bottom with valves on the end. They can use this to administer the chemo drugs, saline or to withdraw blood. It really isn’t as bad having it as I thought it would be. It was just very sore the first day and night but it is a big PITA when I need to bathe or shower because I can’t get it wet.

That night when I was getting ready for bed I noticed there seemed to be quite a bit of blood around the incision and it looked like the lines were right full of blood. This freaked me out a little because I wasn’t sure if it was normal. I called emergency at RUH and they didn’t know but they told me to call the Health Line. They weren’t sure so they told me to call emergency. I said I already talked to them but she said try to talk to someone in oncology. Yeah right this is 11:30 at night! I called back to emergency and she said she could call the oncologist on call but I didn’t think this was serious enough for that. She then put me through to the nurse on the 6th floor because they have cancer patients and deal with PICC lines a lot. That nurse said I probably should come in and have it flushed. The emergency department in the city at midnight is quite a bustling place but fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long though and the nurse at the desk just put me in a room and took care of it. It turned out that once I got under those bright lights it was just the color of the line and there wasn’t any blood in it at all. I felt kind of foolish but she flushed it out anyway and all in all we were only gone about 1 hour counting the driving time to and from.

Now homecare has to come in once per week to flush the lines with saline to keep them from clogging. I think I am going to have this thing for the next 14 months. UGH