Wednesday, September 8, 2010

New Friend

This is Elizabeth,
From What's Wannietta Knitting Today?
one of the nurses who will be caring for my PICC line (flushing it out and changing the dressings) and helping to manage some of the side effects of the chemo over the next 18 weeks. Bonus - Elizabeth knows how to knit though she said that she's really not very good. Maybe I'll have to claim that my health requires a knitting buddy!
The PICC line is not much to see. Though Amanda brought her friends in to see it like show & tell! They were both intrigued & grossed out by it. I did ask Elizabeth about using it as a Caffeine IV. Towing the company line she suggested that it not be used as such but allowed as how it was a good idea! LOL She said that she's seen drug abusers shooting up in the hospital with it ... so seriously, how bad could it be to main line a bit of Starbucks?
Elizabeth "sausage wrapped" it so that the line clamp doesn't stab into my skin when I wear a sleeve. The hospital gave me a stretchy (stretched out) thing that is alright during the day if I'm not actually doing much but it keeps slipping down. Which made me think ... at what point does a sock become a sleeve? When you cut off the foot!
From What's Wannietta Knitting Today?
Normally I duplicate stitch over the thin stitches in the heel or darn the hole if it comes to that but this Opal sock had done it's time & was seriously thin anyway. It's a bit snug, but it keeps the external part of the PICC line nice & secure at night (I'm seriously paranoid that I'm going to rip it out in my sleep). Once I'm done my Knitters Fair knitting I will knit up a couple of more sleeves - Knit One Below will be the perfect stretchy stitch for this!!
Speaking of Knitters Fair - Beverly is moving right along! I finished the 1st sleeve yesterday waiting to get the PICC line put in. Some emergency came up & they were running 1.5 hours late. OY!! I was totally prepared though! This is the pile that it makes on my lap - you'll have to wait to see if I matched the sleeves!!
From What's Wannietta Knitting Today?
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7 comments:

  1. life ldc3:49 PM

    Trust you to use a worn-out hand-knit sock for this LOL

    Good One Wannietta!

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  2. roxie6:36 PM

    Canadian health care is so good! They are really going out of their way, to get you a nurse that is a knitter. And you may start a new craze in the chemo ward for hand-knit pic-line cozies. How cool is that?

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  3. Anonymous6:54 PM

    I wonder why they do a PICC instead of a port-ocath? I have a power port. It's completely under the skin and requires no maintenance at all during chemo. It's handy because they can do blood draws and IVs through it as well as contrast dye for CT scans. When not getting chemo, it needs to be flushed ever 6 weeks or so. Since there is nothing outside my body there is no dressing and no risk of infection.

    I think everyone should be born with one. :)

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  4. Rhonda7:49 PM

    Leave it to you to come up with the sock sleeve. You're a genius. Lets see if the 2 of us can get our fair knitting done. I'm almost there. Maybe tomorrow. Take care.

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  5. Sandra2:36 PM

    looking forward to seeing you in Kitchener!

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  6. Roz8:20 PM

    I think this is going to be a really productive and creative period for you -- and I can't wait to see the pre-chemo haircut! Rock out!

    ReplyDelete
  7. TracyKM11:50 AM

    I saw a couple years ago in a KnitPicks catalogue that they had 'real' patterns for PICC sleeves. But I think it was boring beige. Sock yarn would be much nicer! I had to have a PICC line (I think, it was for daily IV injections of antibiotics) for a week and wish I had had a sleeve for it!

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