Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Day 4

Day 4 - A Picture of Your Night



Okay well my night is not so much fun. So here's a picture of me doing my first IV med of the night. My total night schedule takes a little of 4.5 hours. So yea that is all I will be doing! My boyfriend is working so he will stop by when he is done.
I have had quite a productive day however. Last night when my sister was accessing my port we weren't getting a blood return. We were both extremely confident that it was in the right place. I have also have issues with clots before so I was kind of freaking out. Not to mention this is already my THIRD port since July 2008! She called her friend over who is a pediatric home care nurse and also accesses ports to give it a try, also no luck. So today I went into the city to have a port study. They just accessed my port under fluoroscopy to make sure it was in the right place and checked to see what was causing the blockage. At the end of the catheter a tiny clot, a "fibrin sheath" in the medical world was starting to form. They were able to give me a clot busting medication called tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) which ran through my port for a little over an hour and cleared the blockage, HOORAY!

4 comments:

Stacey said...

Whew! So glad you were able to resolve the little clot!

Katherine Gilkey said...

geez girl sounds like you just cant get a break!! but glad you got it taken care of! : )

Katey said...

Glad your port is ok!! I treasure mine, and I know when there is no blood return, that something is wrong. Hope you are starting to at least feel a little better with the abx.

Sorry I'm just now finally getting around to commenting on your blog. Thanks for your sweet comments on mine! As you know...Nursing School is crazy!!!

emily. said...

i get fibrin sheaths on all of my picc lines. apparently some people are more prone to growing them...? it hasn't been a huge deal since my meds still infuse properly, but it does mean that i often can't get blood return from the picc. as a result, i usually have to get stuck for antibiotic levels -- slightly annoying but obviously not the end of the world. anyway, i'm glad they were able to get your port working again! tPA works miracles!