PICC Insertion

Late last week I met with the surgeons about going forward with the spleenectomy on Tuesday the 25. I was, at the time, still running a fever and feeling pretty shitty from both the return of my skin infection and also the plague that Cardin bestowed upon me after 2 days of preschool.

The deal we struck was this:

I’d stay on the surgery schedule and call first thing Monday morning to review my condition. Hopefully, rest and fluids over the weekend would help speed up the healing process

In theory it sounded like a marvelous plan. In reality….I spent ALL weekend running a fever and hacking my lungs out. Listen lady, as a side note, a maniacal cough is not a pleasant arrangement for oversized organs.

When I called this morning, the surgeon initially jumped on the cancellation bandwagon. However, after consulting with anesthesiology I was given the green light for take off.

In order to avoid a confrontation with the IVs, I had the surgeon request a PICC line. For those that don’t know, this is similar to an IV, but instead of it going into a vein in your arm or hand, it goes from your upper arm into your chest, near your heart. This should allow for fluids, antibiotics, and blood draws without the need for continual punctures.

It’s a fairly painless procedure. They use lidocaine to numb the area. Yea…this stings and burns, but once it’s numb, the rest of the procedure is pain free. Perhaps I will start a new fundraising campaign. Instead of “save the whales”,we could go with “save the veins”.

So lady, we are set to remove the most gigantic spleen in history tomorrow, around lunchtime. Fingers crossed that the surgeon gets a good nights rest and has a steady hand tomorrow.