PICC lines, ER and Other Such Illustrious Abbreviations

Well it has been quite a sweet day today, all in all. HA! OMG so not! Today majorly sucked, and was not fun! Everything medically bad seems to be happening this week, and Mark and Mary (my other auntie and uncle!) are visiting, which sucks way more because I can't really do much with them because I feel really bad. I'm so glad they are here though.

Last night, I discovered while putting in the saline solution into my PICC line, that I had a whole in the line, just below the cap (basically a small little 'lid' on the line to prevent my blood from spilling out all over the place! :D ) and when I pushed in the saline, it went out the whole and all over me. I quickly clipped the line (its kinda like a close line that makes sure the line is cut off...kinda hard to explain) so that my blood didn't come pouring out *eeewww*. So basically I then freaked right out because of the thought of bleeding, and the people at the hospital said when we phoned them ,that I could come in tomorrow and they could 'have a look at it'. Needless to say I was totally stoked at the prospect of someone playing around with my PICC line. 

The next day went to the radiology department at Middlesex Hospital (don't ask me why radiology deals with PICC lines, I don't really get it), and they took me into the 'room'. The 'rom' looks like something out of a 'Secret Torture Center' handbook, except way cleaner than I imagine those places to be. It kinda looked scary, not gonna lie, but maybe it was just my imagination, fueled by my dislike of all things hospital, sterile and clusterphobic like the 'room' is. They put some 'freezy' in my arm, which is nice but scares me a little to know that the procedure will hurt and thats why they froze it. The doctor, kindly *rolls eyes* ripped of (and i mean RIPPED) the Tagaderm off my arm and roughly removed the pillow. I guess when you have a medical degree, you worry little about torturing you victims a little more than you plan to in the first place. They had to take out the broken line, and insert the new one, which is more uncomfortable than I care to describe. They messily put new dressing on and sent me on my way. Except then I started to have breathing problems, and at a hospital they FREAK OUT if you mention words like 'I'm having trouble breathing' and such. They let me calm down a bit before letting me go. 

I was like washing my hands or something like that, when I discovered that I had previously only scratched the surface of a world of pain. I have never known such pain, nor did I know it was possible. It takes everything pain: thought, emotion, control, common-sense - it turns a part of you wild.

They sent me 'upstairs' to ER, for the usual X-rays, EKG and such. The doctor was by far the nicest doctor I have ever had in ER, and actually seemed to have a heart, and was kind! So were the nurses!! I have never known that many wonderful medical people ever, and I've met quite a few. All of the staff I met at Middlesex hospital were wonderful, and totally exemplified what hospitals should be all about: helping people and caring about it too! I can offer no higher praise to them than that! The EKG technician, Johnny, was super super chill and nice. He was youngish, and I brought up the movie '50 First Dates' to try and describe the whole memory loss thing. He was all like 'You're 10 second Tom!'. It was really nice to talk to someone so compassionate and understanding. He came back later and gave me a baby tiger stuffy to give me a nice memory of the hospital trip. It was really cool. People can go through med school and have compassion see. 

All and all though I do feel a bitty shitty, my arm keeps throbbing loudly and asking 'WTF did you do to me TRAITOR!?'. Sigh. I'm so tired. I'm always so tired.