Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Catheter and The Pig

With the wig my Grandma got me. We named it Sharon Tate.


Dr. Sapra was going to India for a month. I found out later that he went there once a year to visit his family. To have my chemo treatments during the time he would be gone, he assigned me to another oncologist.

Dr. Moss was shorter than me. He resembled my uncle which made me feel that I could trust him. He didn’t spend long with me, but in that short time I learned that he had no sense of humor. At least not like mine! He sent me into a well situated chemo room with big plush recliners, a couple of TVs and lots of reading material. Being used to Dr. Sapra’s office, I came with all my normal supplies.

The nurse had me sit down and she stuck the needle in my arm to take blood for my tests. When she returned, she set me up to receive chemo. She’d started the chemo in the bend of my right arm. It felt kind of strange to me, but I fell asleep before I said anything to her about it. The rest of that trip was uneventful.

I returned two weeks later and received the same treatment. This time, the nurse went into the bend of my left arm. My left arm was pretty useless, anyway, but she was able to make it stick.

I faithfully did my job of healing while Dr. Sapra was away. When he came back, his nurse was out sick. Determined to give me my chemo, Dr. Sapra tried to stick me himself. The only place he could find that still had a vein was inside my right wrist. Within seconds, my wrist had puffed up to the size of a golf ball. Dr. Sapra had gone through the vein with the needle and it was puffing up. Dr. Sapra pulled the needle out and tried his best to bandage up my arm.

“You need a catheter! Tomorrow – we get you a catheter!” he told me. I had no idea what he was talking about. He got his office manager on the phone and they scheduled me an appointment with the surgeon and pre-op starting the next day. After he made all the appointments he sat me down and explained to me what a Hickman Catheter was.

The idea of tubes sticking out of my chest scared me half to death. I was really upset at this point. I went home and told my parents. Mom said she would take me in for the appointment to have this thing “installed”.

I went in to have the surgery two days later. I ended up with the same surgeon. I don’t remember much about the surgery itself, since I was under anesthesia. When I woke up, I had a new addition to my body. I was all taped up all over my chest and neck and I had a long white tube sticking out of my right breast that urned into a Y becoming two tubes. At the end of each tube were little hard lumens, about an inch long each – one red and one blue.

Once I got home, my whole chest became quite painful. I took a lot of Vicodin and tried to sleep. This is when it became increasingly uncomfortable. I am a side sleeper, and with this tube coming out between my breasts, I felt I was in danger of pushing it in or around and dislodging it if I slept on my side. I could not fall asleep while on my back. At this point, I had gained a significant amount of weight because of the steroids that I was on, and it inhibited my breathing while lying on my back.

I had started getting up in the middle of the night because I was restless during the period I was receiving chemo. I would watch TV. Thank goodness for TVLand and Three’s Company! After the surgery was one of those times. I sat around trying to get tired enough to fall asleep in whatever position I was in and came up with an idea! Try sleeping with a towel between my breasts! It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it kept me from worrying as much.

The next day, my mom and I tried to learn how to clean the tubes out. There was a lot of maintenance involved in this tubey thing. Once a day we had to clean “The Tubes.” It creeped me out. Mom had to fill up two plastic syringes with Heparin and two with saline and shoot them into my tubes to keep them clean and to keep them from acquiring clots. We had a home health nurse come by to teach mom how to take care of everything. The first time it was done, I could taste the saline in the back of my mouth and in my nose. I could not figure out why. I started being able to tell the difference between the saline and the Heparin. It wasn’t a nasty taste, but it wasn’t pleasant, either. Then the nurse taught my mom how to clean the tube site. This part was much more involved with sterilization. There were sealed packs containing sterile tape, gloves, swabs, etc. It made me so afraid to move.

The home health nurse had me lay on the end of the bed, so I was kind of stretched out in the chest area. There was a clear sheer plastic window taped across my chest and over the tube insertion point. She removed that first. Then she opened the sterile pack after throwing away all the trash and washing her hands. She put on a mask and some gloves, and rubbed a swab of alcohol over the site. Then she wiped any excess goop off of me. After that, she rubbed Betadyne with another swab all over the area. Once that dried a little she placed a new window bandage over the site. It took a lot longer than it sounds. It wasn’t painful the first few times, but it was a little scary. After those first few times, though, the tape started wearing on my skin and it hurt terribly. Because of this, I also was unable to take showers. I had to take baths and be sure not to get any water or soap near my chest. After that, I never did smell too pretty or feel very clean.

Once we had done all that, mom and I set out to find a better solution to my sleeping problem. I had taken to sleeping with my blankie from when I was a little kid and a stuffed Piglet (Pig) that my mom bought me a couple years before that, just for some security. We decided that I should try using the blanket wrapped around my pig and sleeping on my side. It worked! It was comfortably soft, and just the right size to fit between my breasts to keep them apart and keep the tube from moving. I know it sounds silly, a 27 year old woman with a security blanket and a stuffed animal keeping her company while sleeping, but this was truly a wonderful thing and a huge relief for me.


This is Pig. He has been through a couple of battles with me and looks it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I am glad to hear you are still hanging in there.

Take care of what's important; we'll be hanging in there along with you.

Health and happiness,
Suz Protz

Tink1272 said...

Thank you. :-)

I am no longer ill, I am just writing my story. I haven't had cancer in 6 years.

But I am doing well, and that's great!