Day 22 - home sweet home, maybe

So, I really wasn't lying when I said this certainly a roller coaster ride!

Today was sailing smoothly. The doctors said Shane was all good to go. We had organised discharge meds to be done the day before (as these often take ages), Shaney was all packed and ready to go. He just needed his PICC line put in, and he needed to be connected to a CAD pump to administer the gancyclovir (CMV treatment) twice a day until Tuesday when he returns to the RBH for a check up.

Shane was due to have his PICC line done at 1pm in medical imaging and true to Hospital Time, he went down just before 2pm. An hour and a half later he returns with his new PICC exclaiming that they were working on him that whole time. The medical imaging team had a tough time getting the tube the 32cm required as it kept getting hooked at 16cm. They got it there in the end.

So finally we grabbed our gear and headed down to level 4 Outpatients to have the pump connected. The medication was all good to go, the nurses were all dressed in their cytotoxic gear and the pump was connected to the bag of fluids. Before hooking up any medication to any line, nurses always bleed approx 10mLs to avoid a "toxic shower" (very bad) of infections possibly living in the line. This is standard practice across the board when working with permanent lines. Then once they bleed the line, they flush it with saline solution to clear it out, then hook up the medication.

So, today when the nurse flushed the line, Shane's bandage filled up with bloody fluid (and squirted out some)! The nurse couldn't believe it! She walked away for a minute, then came back and said "I don't believe that really happened, I have to try again". The same thing happened.

There was a hole in Shane's line near to the entry site! It meant that they were unable to hook Shane up to the gancyclovir to go home. It could cause all sorts of serious problems - including toxic burns on Shane's skin.

This is when Shane tells us that the people who did the bandages stuffed it up, THEN USED A SCAPEL to get it off the line! Now, my New Years resolution is to not complain, but this moment really challenged this resolution! The nick was 1cm long! You should have seen the team of angry people who made their way in soon afterwards! Then there was discussions about what to do next. One of the nurses phoned the doctor, who said "He'll just have to stay" - the nurse looked at Shane and said "good luck keeping him here!"

After much deliberation they took the PICC out (shortest time in history), gave him a stat dose of the gancyclovir through his cannula, and arranged oral medications for the weekend (how simple is that?). 

PHEW!

That was a close call.

We are now Home Sweet Home!