Yesterday was the Big Day. I was to go have my PICC line placed at 3:00. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous but I was my usual Pollyanna optimistic self. I worked till about 1:45 then flew outta my office, drove about 75 miles to my LLMD's office.
It went perfectly, two very sweet and very experienced ladies placed it. We were joking and enjoying ourselves, making light of the whole thing.
The placement was perfection. Not much worse than giving blood, really. We X-rayed it, my doctor gave it a thumbs-up.
Laid back down to tape it in place.
Then to my (and HER) complete horror and astonishment, instead of taping it down, she PULLED IT OUT.
The other nurse looked over at her and said, "Did you just do what I THOUGHT you did?"
The first nurse's eyes filled with tears as she held what looked like about two feet of line in her hand and said, "I can't believe I just did that."
She had pulled the entire line out.
I felt so bad for her.
Anyway, my veins were just great, so I told her not to worry, I would tell the doctor that I had sat up prematurely and messed her up! (However, she refused to let me do this.)
We of course had to redo the entire thing. Same vein, same arm.
There was a bit of blood going on in that corner, but I smartly refused to look over there.
It was in a little far this time and had to be pulled out a bit.
The doctor wasn't mad (he's a sweetie) and HE in fact offered to take the blame for her too!!! (since the infusion company makes them document the why of every single placement, I reckon he was offering to say he didn't like the first placement, if that would help her!)
Anyway, we would up laughing about the whole thing.
I told her I wasn't a bit worried, and I figured the universe wanted me to hang around there another half an hour or so, maybe to be out of harm's way in case of some bad traffic accident or something that would have happened to me, or her, or some such thing, and that everything happens exactly as it's supposed to, and to please not cry over it.
My PICC line feels just fine and I'm about to do my first Rocephin infusion by myself this morning. A little nervous, a'course. But not too bad!
In all her years of placing PICC's she has never done such a thing.
Goes to show what a good time we were having.
Wish me luck with my first infusion... Then we'll see whether I can flyfish with this dang thing.
:-)
Michelle