PICC Me
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were unplanned hospital days for me. We ventured up to Cleveland on Tuesday for my chemotherapy and, of course, ran into IV issues right from the start. My silly veins require ultrasound guidance to start the IV, and this time- we got an IV but when we went to use it for chemo, it didn't have a blood return, so it was not useable, even though it was flushable and patent (darn hospital policy). So.....last Wednesday was PICC line day. Why not a port? They will not insert ports if you are inpatient; ports have to be inserted outpatient. So instead, I got a PICC line in my left arm, and was thankfully able to get my chemo Wednesday afternoon and come home on Thursday. For my nurse and nurse practitioner friends....I was so impressed by the PICC placement team and procedure- it didn't hurt except for the lidocaine, and went in so quickly using ultrasound, less than 15 minutes. And they use some type of sensor that sat on my chest and detected tip