Tuesday 8 August 2017

The reality of living with a Hickman line


                                      PLEASE DON'T READ IF SQUEAMISH















I apologise that this might be a depressing post but sometimes it just helps to get my thoughts out. If you've read my previous posts you will know that I have a Hickman line. It goes into my chest and stops just above my heart. I connect it to tpn (total parental nutrition) which is essentially my food and goes into the bloodstream bypassing the organs.I have gastroparesis which means my stomach is partially paralysed. Tpn is a last resort.

My line has been ok up until about two weeks ago. The nurse thought it had a scab on it so scrubbed and scrubbed. It was not to bad until the nurse came yesterday. This is the result.



Seeing it like this just brings home how fragile and important my line is. If it gets an infection then it can lead to sepsis which I have fought once already. Also if your temperature goes above 38 degrees then you can run tpn as it feeds the infection. There's also a risk of losing the line. The reality is you can't keep having new lines as you run out of access. No access means no more Hayley. 

So fingers crossed if it's just left alone it will heal.

Depressing post over and you can now open your eyes.

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