So why am I in A&E? Because my bloody Hickman line has broken. When I disconnected my feed I tried to change the bionector (as it has to be changed every week) but the bloody thing was stuck. This has happened before, lots of times, so exactly as I’ve done a million times before I gave it a bit of a tug. Normally this would loosen it and then I can change it as normal but this time the green part of the line came away with it 😱 and it’s DEFINITELY NOT SUPPOSED TO!
Shit. Shit! SHIT!
I gave it a wipe with the alcohol wipes and popped it back in place but when I went to flush the line with saline it leaked. This is not good. I use a 70% alcohol line lock every day to stop bugs growing in the line so I bunged some of that down my line and started praying that I’m not going to get a line infection.
Now technically I should have rung the ward at that point but I had been home less than 18 hours and I couldn’t face having to go back into hospital. So I did what any self respecting adult would do in this situation and I buried my head in the sand and pretended it hadn’t happened!
Big Girl had a netball tournament all day Saturday so I went and watched that (they won!) and then I went out to a local comedy night with Hubby and my parents and it felt good to just be out of hospital, wearing clothes instead of pjs and doing normal stuff.
But I couldn’t chance using the line last night which meant I had to skip my feed and that has left me feeling rubbish and dehydrated. I knew I couldn’t ignore the situation any longer so this morning so rang F22 and spoke to the nurse in charge. She said they might have a bed on the ward later in the day so she would ring me back. But when she called back this afternoon there was no bed which meant my only option was to go into A&E.
Now A&E is usually like a bloody war zone and I find the whole experience of being there quite traumatic. That’s why whenever possible I will get myself admitted directly to the ward. But today it’s strangely quiet. The nurses tell me it’s because of the junior doctors strike- maybe people have heeded warnings and stayed away unless absolutely necessary.
Unusually there is a nurse in A&E that’s trained to access Hickman lines (she used to work on Intensive Care which is why she’s trained) so they’ve been able to take blood from my line which they will use for blood cultures to check for infection. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have got an infection brewing as all around my line is sore and as time goes on the pain is getting worse and tracking up towards my shoulder.
If it’s infected then most likely I will lose the line but if not then I’m really hoping the line can be repaired. This line is 1 week away from being a year old and I honestly don’t remember the last time I had a line for that long as I’ve been so unlucky the last few years with infections and them breaking. Unfortunately the nutrition nurses on F22 aren’t trained to do repairs like they are at St Marks and some other hospitals. This means it has to be done in Interventional Radiology and I will have to join their waiting list. The last time this happened I think I was in for 2 weeks waiting for a slot! And the problem is that without a working line I can’t have my feeds at home so I either need to have fluids through a cannula or have feed through a Picc line each night while I wait for the line to be fixed.
So for now I’m waiting. Waiting to find out if I’ve got an infection and whether the line can be saved. Waiting for a bed to become free on F22. Waiting to find out how long I will be here. Waiting to know if it’s worth even looking at holidays or if I’m just torturing myself. Waiting, it would seem to live my life.
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