On Friday two things happened.
We went to see the Ear Nose and Throat doctor
and
the infusion pump attached to the PICC line failed.
The ENT doctor looked in Ivy’s ears and declared her grommets blocked.
It was okay because her paed had already mentioned that they might be, so I was kind of expecting it.
The ENT doctor had three suggestions;
1) leave them blocked because her ears looked clear.
2) use Hydrogen Peroxide to clear them
3) replace them.
I said no to all three.
If I leave them blocked, all that will end up happening is
when Ivy is off the IV antibiotics and gets her next bout of otits media (and you know she will, it’s not just me who believes this to be true, is it?) I will have a child with blocked grommets and a build up of goop and pressure behind the drum.
This will lead to;
1) a very unwell girl
2) a girl in pain.
3) all the complications that go along with that (because it’s Ivy we’re talking about here).
The only thing worse than chronically discharging ears, also known as chronic supprative OM, is the above. When the goop has nowhere to go the girl doesn’t do well at all. Not that she does well anyway but she is most certainly worse.
I said no to the hydrogen peroxide because
1) Ivy hates it
2) I hate it
3) it strips the mucosal lining of the ear canal, killing off any good flora there is in her ears and basically opens the door to any nasty bug that passes by.
I also said no to more surgery
because
1) the girl has had two general anaethetics in six weeks
2) she is due another one very soon for the port insertion
3) it means more hospital time.
We were at a bit of a fork in the road until the doctor realised I had said that she was having the port inserted.
He said he would replace the grommets at the same time.
All I had to do was talk the paed into using a certain surgeon for the port and then call the ENT doctor back with a date and a time and he would be there.
He made it all sound so easy.
Of course, it’s not going to be that easy.
By Friday afternoon I knew that the infusion pump was not working.
The line was working okay so I took the pump off and replaced it
but by Saturday afternoon the new pump had not worked either and I knew we needed to get things checked out.
It seems that the PICC had slipped almost 10cm. Panic ensued and an urgent xray which showed that even with the slip, it was still just sitting inside the vein that tips the heart but the slippage had caused the line to kink and block.
The nurse fixed the line and we were good to go.
Nothing like a bit of stress thrown into the mix lateon a Saturday afternoon.
I think it’s definitely time for the PICC line to be removed and the port to go in. It has been a pesky edition, this time around and hopefully, if all things go to plan we will be able to co ordinate all the doctors concerned.
Just don’t hold your breath.
