Your Average Trip to the Hospital

Okay everyone. For those of you who do not know what its like to be in the hospital for two weeks at a time with a PICC line, I will give you a summary of what it is like.

So the day you get admitted is the day they do your procedure. It is nerve racking since they pierce a whole into your arm where your main vein is and shove a tube down your bloodstream until it reaches the point at which it will sit above your heart. It is somewhat painful especially when your vein spasms and contracts making it harder for it to move. This causes the doctors to push harder and that does not have the best feeling in the world. They give relaxation medicine and numbing medicine, but you can still feel feel it just oh so very slightly.

That is probably the toughest part of your journey to the hospital. Then when you are in your bed (luckily you don't have to share with anyone because you are a CFer) and once the medication wears off they plug you in to your IV pole and start feeding you fluids to help clean out your system. Then from there on you just get let off once and a while to walk the halls with your fancy hospital mask. Sometimes you can when you are connected you get to drag your IV pole with you every where you go. You get to pick your hospital meals for the next day and they are delivered to you regularly.

You also have aerosole treatments and vest treatments and medicine you take throughout the day. Every now and then you get to visit your "teen lounge" if your hospital has one. They are filled with games and activities you get to enjoy with other sick kids. But as soon as another CFer wants to come in, you are kicked out of there because no CFer is allowed to interact with one another so they don't spread germs and bacteria.

Showering is the hard part. You have to cut the bottom of a bag out and slip it on like a sleeve where your PICC is and wrap tape around it to aviod getting wet. You also might not wash that part of your arm for two weeks but I usually wash it in the sink avoiding my PICC line with success.

Mostly the rest of the time you are either bored out of your mind, doing independent study work, playing bingo from your most comfortable hospital bed, being on the computer, or having family and friends and all of the vistors in the world come and bring you presents and tell you how bad they feel for you.

My dad and I like to spend our time trying to get the bubbles out of my IV tube while it is beeping like crazy, and trying to avoid having to call my nurse every five seconds it fills with air.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story on Your Average Trip to the Hospital. I would love it if you left comments about your hospital stays and the fantastic adventures they may hold!!

Love,

Lauren~