Be gone curse!

Well another afternoon was spent at the hospital today! It turned out from X-ray number 1 that the end of my PICC line hadn't flipped down into the correct position overnight. This meant another trip to venous access - why is it at the other end of the hospital to the X-ray department!!??!! Anyway, we got there to be told that there would be an hour wait. Mum and I then decided to go and get a drink from the cafe and sit outside rather than remain in the waiting room. (Yes, we'd decided to risk just mum coming with me again - curse be damned!!) On returning to venous access, I was taken through. The original plan was to insert a guide wire through the line they'd put in yesterday and then remove the line and thread another line through over the guide wire and hopefully into the correct position. Well, best laid plans and all that - the nurse practitioner pulled the PICC line out too far to be able to put a guide wire through - she was only meant to retract it a few cm but got carried away and pulled out 36cm of the 40cm they'd put in and as my veins were so deep it had popped out of the vein (they could tell this when they inserted the guide wire and it made me cry out in pain - it's not meant to hurt!). Anyway, the next plan was to start again from the beginning. Oh well!! Luckily the nurses took pity on me and let me have some cold spray on my arm to numb my arm before they injected the stingy local anaesthetic, normally reserved for the children!! :-) it worked a treat, although i'm not sure it would be very pleasant if I was cold sensitive from oxyplatin! Well, the second line went in ok and this time they used ultra-sound on both sides of my neck to check that the line hadn't gone astray again! Apparently, they hadn't seen in years what happened yesterday! I must be special!! Hahaha

Well, although the nurses in venous access were confident that the line was in the right place, off to X-ray we went again to check! We certainly clocked up the steps today. Another gown was put on and X-ray number 2 of the day was done! This time the radiographer thought the line was in the right place but he wasn't confident enough to let me go home without me being seen by venous access again!! High Ho high Ho it was off back across the hospital again!! Grrr! By the time we'd got back the nurse had looked at the X-ray image and thought all was fine so I could go home!! At last!! Although it was a bit of a faff having to go back again today, Maria, the nurse practitioner who supervised yesterday and today, was great - keeping me distracted with chatting about all sorts of random things, from why the weather is so changeable here compared with her home in the Philippines to how to curl your eyelashes with a pen!! It was great! :-)

Anyway, hopefully that'll be it for hospital visits until Tuesday - chemo day!! Now I'm going to enjoy my free days with my friend, the PICC, back in my arm. Pity the weather looks like sticking with the rules of a British bank holiday - don't forget your brollies if you're heading out and about!! ;-)

Take care y'all!

Xxxx