PICC line Part 1

This post is scheduled to be posted on the night that I will be in the Outer Banks. I am so stoked about that. I will post after I return about how the trip went and how the Great Strides Walk went that Nathan and Tricia did (whether I was able to go or not shortly after returning from the mini vacation).

I had known for some time that I would probably be needing a PICC Line.

The Lymies call it the PICC Line club. People either want to be in the club or they want to steer away from the club. At the start of treatment, you want to be as far away from the PICC Line Club (PLC) as possible. However as time goes on and you get more and more IV's ... the PLC becomes either necessary or desireable depending on the condition of your veins. I will explain the PLC in a moment, but first let me explain that since Feb 07 I have been going into the doctors once a week or once every couple of weeks to get IV's. At one point, the frequency was twice a week. The first kind of IV's I would get really only made me tired. I could drive afterwards, but not much else. I could get home on my own and take a long nap. However, if you go back to Tuesday's blog, you will see that I decided to do a new treatment. These treatments render me of doing anything. The first few treatments, I even needed help going to the bathroom. Sometimes I couldn't stop drooling after the treatment. I couldn't control the muscles in my throat to swallow.

What's this got to do with the PLC you ask? Well July 17th was supposed to be an ordinary day for me. There had been talks of me getting a PL, but we weren't really going to discuss it until the end of July. For some reason that day that I don't remember, my father dropped me off at my IV appointment instead of my husband. I guess maybe he had to work and couldn't be late. I waited for my nurse. She then proceeded to look for a vein. I got a bunch of "Oh honey" and "I'm so sorry" and "I just can't find one." Still she stuck that needle into my arm trying to find a vein. The first one she prodded for what seemed like 15 minutes, but it probably was only about 2. That one hurt, but it wasn't any more painful than usual. The second vein she prodded we both thought she got. It was painful, but once I got the heating pad on it I knew it would be fine. UNTIL, she turned on the IV itself. I screamed out "OH MEREDITH." "OH MEREDITH" isn't exactly the best thing to scream out. She stopped the IV quickly and pulled it out. She grabbed my other arm gently and said "what about here?" she touched on a spot that almost made me jump out of my seat. So she tried one more spot and at this point I am full of tears. The pain of the three tries and three failures was more than I could take. So she sent me over to drink more water and heating pad my arm some more. She went away in private to talk to my doctor.

They immediately went to the PL discussion because that's what we were going to set up at my next appointment at the end of July. He comes out and looks at my arms. His eyes are filled with compassion and he asks me how I'm doing. That's a loaded question there. I fill him in with all the details of the last couple weeks and he decides he's going to set up the appointment for next week.

I broke down saying that my husband had off that day and that I was missing a lot of work and that I needed something that day because I was going downhill fast and I just did not want to get back to where I was because that spot wasn't pretty. I did not even enjoy life 2 months ago (now that was May 08). I was fed up with everything and I just was done. If waiting another week for a treatment was going to bring me back to where I was 2 months ago, I felt like screaming "put a fork in me I'm done."

He left the IV room again saying he was going to see what he could do. So he called over to the hospital and came back. Once he returned, he said something about doing a miracle. I had to get over to the hospital right then and the doctor over there would do it immediately. Then after it was inserted for me to come back for my treatment.

This was the time to heal, build, embrace, mend and love all in one moment.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace."- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8