Saturday, November 21, 2009

The botched port flush!

So yesterday I went to get my port flushed. First off I was waiting for 20 minutes after my appointment time before the nurse finally showed up. She didn't bother to call or anything. When she finally go there I didn't get a good feeling about her. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe it had something to do with the fact that she looked like she never made it out of the 80s. Anyway, she finally gets there and we go back to the room in the infusion clinic that my home infusion company uses at the local hospital.

She got the lidocaine in and then got set up while that went to work. Then she missed.....ok, the last nurse missed the first time too, not a big deal. So she gets the other needle, and has me lay down this time. And she missed. Really?? While she went and got yet another needle I looked at where she was jabbing me, and I kid you not both spot are right over the outside edge of my port! I told her when she came back that I thought she was too far to the right. She blows me off. Now at this point I should have made her let me try, but I've never done this before and only seen it done one other time so I was not overly confident in my abilities. She misses. At this point she says she's not going to try any more. I said "No you sure aren't! Not now or ever!"

This woman is NEVER touching me again. The nurse who did it last time is supposed to contact me to set up a time to do it in the next couple of days. I swear I'm going to get a target tattooed over the damn thing!

1 comment:

Megan said...

That's a lot of misses. I seriously don't blame you for telling her to back off!

When I get my port accessed the nurses always put their fore finger and their thumb on either side of my port to make sure they're aiming at the right place (and I guess to keep it still, it does move a tiny bit to either side) So, if you suggested they do this, they might aim a bit better b/c I'm sure they'd rather not end up with the needle embedded in their fingers! Xx