May Contain Nuts

Picc line day. 

Nicky, Liz and Claire came to sit with me on Saturday as Emily and Simon were at a car show and Hannah was at work all day. I was fine. Did get a little bit tired but I battled through. It was lovely to see them all. I’m not sure if I talked too much about the chemotherapy. I know in some of the leaflets and information sites they say that you should feel comfortable telling people that you don’t want to talk about, but once you get me started, I can’t shut up. I thought this blog would help me get it all out, but not everyone knows about it, so I just keep on talking! I told them that I’m having my picc line done on Tuesday and I’ll probably get a taxi to the hospital as everyone else is at work. Nicky and Liz offered to take me, so I might have to take them up on their offer of help. 

Anyway, felt ok over the weekend, kept talking the tablets continued to eat some food. I can’t eat big dinners like I used to, so I get the child-like portions. 

Hannah ended up swapping a shift this week, so she was available to take me to the hospital today. Well, both Hannah and Tom were available, so they dropped me off whilst they went out for brunch. 

I was escorted by the receptionist to the picc nurses’ area, and I sat waiting for them to get the room ready. It’s a bit weird to perform surgery in what can only be described as a demountable building that is being held together with gaffer tape on the floors. But it was clean inside the room. I was asked to lie on the bed, with my right arm resting at a right angle to me on a pillow. An ultrasound was used to look for my veins. And look, and look, and look. They are too small she said, so she looked in my armpit. There is a thicker one there that she can use but it’s still a bit small. They looked on my left arm, and of course, there was a thicker vein on that side. Could we do it that side? No. The injury in my shoulder meant I was in pain just holding my arm there for a couple of minutes. How could I hold it there for an hour? The decision was made. To put it in my right arm, two local anaesthetics would need to be given to numb my armpit and the area where the picc line would come out midway down my arm. She cut into my armpit, inserted the line down my arm, and out the second cut in my arm, whilst also feeding more of the picc line towards my chest. I felt a very strange sensation in my hand, and it wasn’t pain but was pain, if that makes sense. The other nurse told me that because the picc line is going along a vein, the nerve endings run alongside the veins, and it has pushed against the nerve endings. It felt like someone was activating my nerves in my fingers, one after the other, very fast. Not something I would like to repeat but I have a feeling something similar may happen when they remove the picc line at the end of my treatment. 

The other nurse came to check on me at one point and I think she may have noticed that I was crying. Or the fact that I had said at one point that I wasn’t sure if I had made the right decision if it wasn’t as straight forward as it could be. I was lying on an operating bed, with holes in my arm, and a nurse struggling to fit a tube into my thin veins. I had so many thoughts going through my head. How can this small lump have me going through all this. I’ve never been a sicky person. Always stayed away from the doctors. Made sure I looked after myself. Never took unnecessary tablets. I am nothing like my mum or nan who both liked a visit to the doctor to get all the pills. But I’m now lying here, wondering why all this is happening to me, when I don’t want to be here. I just want everything to go away. Is that possible? Could I click my fingers and wake up to my old life? No. I must get through this. This is still the beginning of the treatment; I have weeks and weeks to go yet. That’s the scary part, and I don’t think I’m coping at all with it. The nurse started talking to me about my family and she distracted me enough for me to relax and then it seemed the line was fitted, and I was being glued up and stuck together with massive clear plasters. I was given all my instructions, and the picc passport to always carry with me, and escorted to the waiting area where I was made a cup of tea and given a biscuit. Hannah and Tom picked me up and we went home. 

Now I know they said I would get used to it being there, and I won’t feel it most days, but I’m not so sure you can used to a tube hanging out your arm that you are most definitely not allowed to get wet at all.