Not long out of hospital and I am going back in… On the Tuesday after I got home I was back in the hospital for a Hickman Line to be put in. I had to go to the hospital a few hours before for bloods to be taken and the obs to be done, this is so they can test your blood to make sure you don’t need anymore before the procedure.

Thankfully we were allowed to nip into Plymouth in between the two appointments as it was a couple of days before christmas I had some last little bits I needed for christmas presents and I treated myself to a cheeky christmas Starbucks. The only upside of going to hospital is that I can sometimes do things like this.

Back to hospital we go and while waiting for the procedure ‘Pick Nick’ (he did my first pick line in my arm and I liked his nickname) came out to talk through the procedure and check a few things, once in the room we realised we had a problem as they needed to get to my neck and potentially get me to look to the left… As far as I understood I could only have my neck brace removed if someone was holding my head and that I most certainly was not allowed to move my head at all. After a chat with the neurosurgeon they were allowed to remove the neck brace but I was not allowed to move. As I have said before things always have to have some kind of hiccup with me. Yay…

The procedure involves putting a line (tube) in under the skin near my boob and then the line travels under the skin up to my neck (still under my skin) and then goes into the main vein at my neck and travels down toward the heart through the main vein. This is all under the skin so all you see is currently a dressing on my neck from when they cut there and a dressing near my boob and some tubes that just dangle now. These tubes now mean they can take blood through them, put anything into them from antibiotics, drip to chemotherapy so I shouldn’t ever need anymore needles throughout my treatment as long as these are working!

So the end results is the reason I did it, no needles! But the actual procedure is very uncomfortable especially as I couldn’t move my head. The whole thing is done while you are awake and it’s done under local anaesthetic, they cover the areas around the skin needed with blue covers… This included my face which is facing the ceiling (normally people stare to the side so they don’t have blue paper on their face), thankfully I don’t get claustrophobic otherwise it would have been impossible as during the procedure when the consultant was working on my neck he kept pushing the blue paper into my face and onto my mouth… But to be honest the worst bit was the four lots of anaesthetic at the beginning and the pressure being put onto the skin and knowing that the consultant is cutting you and putting stuff in you. I have been pretty good with everything so far but sadly I started crying as soon as the first needle was done and a new wave would start with each extra needle and when they talked about needles I would start again, unfortunately the anaesthetic started to wear off before he did the stitches so he had to do another needle (which I felt) and I cried some more. Once it was finished and I had been cleaned up and mum and dad had fixed my neck brace, the nurse who had done both pick lines gave me a massive hug and told me I was much braver than most as the procedure was horrible when it was standardly done but the way I had it done was much more challenging.

After the procedure I had to have an X-ray to double check it was in the correct place and position… Thankfully it was textbook perfect! Yay! This meant I could go home with nothing else to worry about before christmas! Yes…As I left all I could do was hope nothing happened between then and christmas! As lovely as the nurses are I did not want to see them over the christmas days.

 

So I have done as I am told and its now boxing day! All that can be said is that I look a bit bionic/robot like with all the tubes and my brace now… Who needs Star Wars when I can look in a mirror!