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Today is a busy day.  Anthony needs to get a PICC line installed and starts his first day of Chemotherapy (Chemo). 

 A PICC line is a Catheter that is installed in his arm that connects to a vein.  This will be used so that the doctors can have easy access to his veins so they can inject him with medicines, IV’s, Chemotherapy drugs, as well as draw blood.  This is good news because it means that Anthony will not get poked by needles as much since it is almost becoming a daily thing.  He is at the point where he is just tired of the needles and is a bit traumatized over it.  He went from taking shots like it was nothing, to now which takes 5-10 minutes of him crying and being in fear that he knows how much it is going to hurt him.  This PICC line is going to eliminate a lot of the shots that he has coming up.   The drawback is he now has a line that is inserted to his vein that he has to be very careful not to damage.  It will also require for daily cleaning and weekly changing of the dressing (bandage) around it by a home nurse.  He also cannot get that arm wet, which brings him down because all he wants to do is go swimming again this summer. 

 

Covid-19

Because of Covid-19 (Corona Virus) the doctors had to come up with an alternative plan since they are eliminating all non-life threatening surgeries.  They were originally going to go with a Subclavian Line which requires for it to be placed on his chest.  

Instead they are going to go with a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC), which is inserted in his upper arm and they said it doesn’t really fall with what is “considered surgery” so they will be able to do it.

 

Installing the PICC Line

The surgeons then walked into the ICU room we were in and they slowly started to turn it into a surgery room.  Several people came in and they aligned the room with sterile mats and a bunch of other sterile gear.   They then started to inject anesthesia into Anthony and he slowly knocked out.  I was told to leave and they will call me back in an hour.

An hour passed and I was called back to see Anthony.  He was just waking up and didn’t really know what was going on.  We didn’t have much time together because they now want to wheel his bed into the Pediatric department where they have a dedicated room for us so he can start his Chemo for the next few days.

 

Next Article - Surgery