It wasn’t until a few hours later that a clinical support worker turns up, minus the ultrasound machine, to try and cannulate me. Now I’m happy to let anyone have a go because you never know who will get lucky but after 5 attempts in my arm, hands and feet enough was enough. She said she would refer the job to a doctor (which was the original request) but he didn’t turn up until the early hours of the morning, again without the ultrasound. He spent quite a long time looking at both my arms and hands before having a few attempts, all unsuccessful. Around 5.30am another doctor arrived ultrasoundless and she had a few attempts too. When she realised she wasn’t going to get one in she said she would ask an anaesthetist to come up with the ultrasound; if only they had done that hours earlier!
Imagine my relief when the anaesthetist arrived pushing this...
The ultrasound machine is just like the ones used on pregnant women, except instead of looking for a baby we were on the hunt for a decent vein! The anaesthetist thought she had found a good one in my arm and went in with the cannula only for the vein to tissue. This happened again on the other arm too so she decided to take a look at my feet. Even though cannulas in the feet are very sore by this point I had missed my meds and my 2 litres of fluids overnight so I’m dehydrated and willing for them to put a cannula in anywhere! The veins in my feet were too small so she didn’t even attempt to put one in.
The last resort was to use the vein in the upper arm that is normally used for a Picc line. It’s a very deep vein so it was quite painful but finally I had a cannula!
But in the 30 minutes between the anaesthetist putting the cannula in and the nurse coming to connect my fluids the cannula tissued. The nurse tried to flush it with saline (salt water) but it wouldn’t flush and was very painful. Just then the drs arrived on the ward round so they decided they would try to flush it just to check if the nurse was a) doing it wrong b) lying or c)very weak but it was none of the above, it wouldn’t flush and had to be taken out.
The registrar got on the phone to interventional radiology to ask for a Picc line to be put in as an emergency today but the consultant down there said he didn’t know if he could squeeze me in. The plan was to wait for the infections in my blood to settle down further and get a Picc line inserted early next week but the registrar decided there’s a greater risk of me not getting my meds and fluids over the weekend from having no cannula than the infection causing a problem with a Picc line.
By some miracle they managed to slot me in and this afternoon I went to Interventional Radiology for a Picc line. This is a central line, like a Hickman line, but in your arm instead of your chest. It means I will now be able to have my feeds again (instead of just fluids) and that will stop me from feeling hungry and having the urge to eat. When I have eaten over the last few days it’s been really strange as I had gotten used to only having the odd snack a couple of times a week and my bowels have been very unhappy so hopefully they will start to settle down again.
It took the radiology consultant about 10 minutes to insert the Picc line and after a set of observations in recovery I was back up on the ward. It’s been bleeding but the nurses aren’t concerned so neither am I. It’s a double lumen line meaning it’s like two lines in one. This means I can have fluids/feed running through one lumen and antibiotics/antifungals running through the other at the same time. This makes it much easier for the nurses because connections/disconnections have to be done using the aseptic technique to keep the area sterile as the Picc line goes into the heart just like a Hickman line.
I’m just glad that I know I will be able to get everything I need over the weekend without being a human pin cushion!
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