PICC Line Dressing Change - Part Deux

Found this old video of another PICC line dressing change. Thought some of you may be interested...if not, it may be worth the commentary.

 

PICC Line Today??

PICC vs. Port

PICC Line Massacre

PICC Line in the Neck!!!

Sometimes the right foot NEVER seems to know what the left foot is doing here in the hospital. After a series of ball-dropping, x-ray delaying and boondoggling, I'm now stuck with a PICC line that can't be used. So now I have a new IV and must wait until Monday to get this PICC line fixed. Oh what a beautiful day!!!!

Any "nice" hospital stories for me???

My First Ever PICC Line

My first PICC line was somewhere around 1999 or 2000. I’m guessing around then because I don’t ever remember having them in high school which I graduated from in 1998. I started receiving PICC lines for the same reason most of you start getting PICC lines; my peripheral lines would start to blow anywhere between 1-3 days. With 2 week stays, that meant that there were times I went through MULTIPLE I.V.’s. As you can guess, that got old really fast. The other thing that was happening was because of my sensitive veins, they were having to pump the meds into me at an incredibly slow rate. Not that this was so much a problem medically, but mentally it was a little taxing being hooked up to my leash 24 hours a day. When I’m in the Hole, I NEED to be active. If I’m tethered to my I.V. pole that gets a little tough. So the decision was made for me to try a PICC line.

I can tell you exactly what I felt at that time: NERVOUS and slightly disappointed. Let me start with the disappointed feeling first (and I may be labeling the emotion wrongly). I’ve always tried to avoid the typical “CF road”. I think many of you understand that as I’ve talked to a lot of you on this exact subject. Whether it was PICC lines, oxygen at night or embolizations, I always felt like I was conceding to CF. Like I was giving in a little bit and letting CF win (I’ll do a full blog someday on why this is faulty thinking). Let me point out that I still feel the same about ports, but I’ve never felt that way about hospitalizations. Weird, I know.

Ok, back to the PICC line. When they wheeled me down to IR (Interventional Radiology) I think they could tell I was a little on edge. I generally don’t get nervous over anything like this (or ANYTHING for that matter) but this time was different for some reason. I was laying on the actual table for about 2 minutes when the nurse asked, “Is this your first PICC line?” “Yup” I answered. “Want some numbing medication for your arm and some medicine to make you relax?” “Yup”. About 1 minute later I fell into a sort of haze in which anything and everything was funny. It mattered not what they were doing to my arm, I was enjoying Planet Space Cadet way too much!

It was over before I knew it and I didn’t remember feeling a thing during the whole procedure. Sure I felt “tugging” or pressure here and there, but no pain to speak of. As the numbing medication wore off my arm was a little bit sore from the trauma, but a hot compress and some Tylenol nipped that in the bud pretty fast. Since that wonderful day in…well, in whenever it was, I’ve had over 30 PICC lines and am a proud owner of most PICC lines received at my hospital. I can no longer use my left arm due to a vain narrowing near my shoulder, but my right arm is still open, single and ready to mingle. I realize that at some point the PICC party will be over and I will be getting a port, but that time is not right now and I’m really not concerned about anything past today.

**If you click on some of today's links, they will actually take you to videos of both cleaning and discharging a PICC line**

Discharging of a PICC Line

So I'm finally back home and getting adjusted to the "real world". I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your well wishes and prayers while I was in the hospital. I can't even begin to count all of the emails and comments I received while getting my tune-up. I felt them more than you'll ever know and my only hope is that I can give back to you what you guys have given to me. This blog is meant to be a place to get educated, inspired and up lifted and I hope that is what you are taking from it. I certainly felt all of that coming from you guys and I can't thank you enough. Thank you thank you thank you!!!

I was able to get to the gym but had to take it slower than normal as I know it will be a little bit before I get into the swing of things. I'm also going to adjust the frequency of my workouts as well. I'm going to start next week by putting more of an emphasis on cardio and running. I got sidetracked for a couple of months because of my foot, but now I'm ready to go full steam ahead. Mandi has set some pretty lofty goals for us by October and I fully plan on meeting them. You'll also be seeing some changes to the blog in the coming week in terms of structure and content. As always, I enjoy your feedback and am doing this blog for you, so I need to know what you guys like.

Anyway, here's the last of the in hospital videos. WARNING: If you have a weak stomach do not watch this video. If you want to see something pretty fascinating then I suggest you watch it. I'm still amazed that a long "spaghetti noodle" can dangle in my heart and not present a problem. I now present to you, "The Discharging of a PICC Line":

PICC Line Dressing Change

You'll have to excuse my armpit hair hanging out of my shirt (what's going on there!!!???) Here's a video demonstrating a typical PICC line dressing change. Not sure what a PICC line is? Click here.

They Wouldn't Let Me Film the PICC Placement

It was a pretty uneventful day in the hospital today. They wouldn't let me film my PICC line being placed, but I'm going to have them talk to my "legal team" for the next one that they do. Most adult CFers can probably relate to how I'm feeling today; it feels like I got run over by an 18 wheeler.

If you want to get to the "meat" of the video blog you can skip to :59. I haven't learned how to edit videos yet so you get to see all of it.

I did find the following video on a girl getting a PICC line placed at her bedside if you are interested. Also, if you want more info on a PICC line please click here.