Methodist Day 1 (Part 2)

And now for my least favorite part of going into Methodist - getting a PICC line. This time was even less fun than normal. It started when the transport person came to my room with a bed to take me to the surgical suite. He took my down a few floors on the elevator and then delivered me to a large room labelled "Prep and Recovery". I was left in bay 3. At this point I assumed I was waiting for the surgical suite to be open, because they usually do it in there, under fluoroscope.  It turns out that the surgical suite was unavailable, however, so a woman came in to place the PICC where I was.

I've had it done without fluoroscope before, so I wasn't too worried.  Getting a PICC normally isn't very painful, just uncomfortable. First, the person doing it will get all of their supplies ready. Then they will place a sheet over the area and then, if under fluoroscope, search for a good vein. The woman doing mine decided to use my basilic vein in my right arm (the last time I had a PICC they used my left arm and had trouble placing it, even with fluoroscope. They said I had some scarring in my veins that caused the problem and to avoid having a PICC placed in the left arm for a while). She then cleaned the area and injected my arm with lidocaine (not gonna lie, it burns, but it isn't too bad and it doesn't last long). Then, normally, you would only feel some pressure as they use a needle to place a wire guided catheter in the vein. The wire keeps the catheter stiff enough to place correctly (you can find out more about PICC line placement here).

This time, however, I felt pain, despite the lidocaine. The woman doing it said the vein was a little deep and that might be the cause of the pain. Once she had the PICC line placed, she left to call mobile x-ray. I noticed at this point that every time I held my arm in a certain position, I would get a sharp pain just under where the PICC entered my arm, which had never happened before. Then, the x-ray technicians arrived and took an x-ray of my chest, to make sure the PICC was placed correctly. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Instead of going down, toward my heart, it had gone up, into my neck. So she had to pull the PICC line I had in (which doesn't hurt but does feel weird), and place a new one. 

Also unfortunately, she had to push on the area that had been hurting to place the new line, which made things quite painful this time. Eventually it was placed though, and the new x-ray showed it was placed correctly. All that was left to do was apply the dressing and send me back to my room.

My PICC line dressing

There were only a two other things that happened that day. First, my telemetry monitor was brought in and attached to monitor my heart.  

My telemetry monitor

Then an IV pole and pump was brought in and I was hooked up to my meds.

My IV pole

And that was it for my first day. Coming soon - Methodist Day 2!

Methodist Day 1 (Part 1)

Well, let's try this again. I just spent an hour working on this post and managed to lose it. So, take two.

It's time to finally post about my stay in Methodist. I was in from June 30th - July 6th. I took some time off to rest and now it's time to get back to the regular world (and regular posts!). As you may have noticed, this is part 1 of day 1. I took a TON of notes and pics while I was inpatient and I want to make sure there's as much info as possible in my posts. So I'll be breaking it down into multiple posts. I'll try not to keep them too long (no promises though!). 

Typically, sometime the day before you're supposed to be admitted, someone calls from Methodist to let you know what time to come for admission and to give you some basic info, like where Methodist is located, and what to do to register. Since there was some back and forth about what day I was being admitted, I was a little nervous when I hadn't heard anything by 3 pm. So I called the sixth floor of Methodist, where the headache unit is located, and asked if I was on the list to be admitted. I managed to call at just the right time - the woman who calls the new patients was about to begin and she answered when I called. I was on the list and, since she had me on the phone, she told me to come in at noon the next day. 

At 11:30 am on June 30th, I arrived at Methodist. My sister accompanied me, so I would have someone to help carry my stuff and get me settled. When I arrived in the waiting room, I stood in line to sign in. Once I gave my name, I received a black beeper, like you get at a restaurant when you're waiting for a table, and told to wait for it to beep.

The beeper

The waiting room

Once the beeper went off, I went back to the registration area. There, I gave my insurance cards and photo ID. Once she made copies, the woman checking me in phoned the 6th floor to make sure there was a bed ready for me.

Next, I stopped at the security desk to get an ID for my sister.  Then I headed down the hall to the outpatient lab. There, they do a uranalysis and take some blood.  Then I waited for someone to come down from the 6th floor to escort me up.

Every time I've come to Methodist, I've had to wait in the conference room for a room to be available. Once they even took me back downstairs and put me in a spare room while I waited because it was taking so long (but that was the time I was admitted as an emergency, so it was a bit different).  This time I was brought right to room 607. It was tiny, definitely the smallest I've been in, but it was in a quiet area (believe it or not, not all of the headache patient rooms are quiet. There are signs asking people to keep quiet, but not everyone on the floor is there for headaches, and some of them can get quite nosiy. Once I was across the hall from an older Italian couple who shouted at each other the whole time they were there). 

The window in my room (you can't see it here, but I had a lovely view of a brick wall). The fan was brought from home because I get hot when I have a migraine

The other side of the room

The bathroom was surprisingly large

A very short time later, someone (I think he was a fellow) came by to ask questions about my pain, current medications, and medical history. I also had to fill out a form listing my belongings (for security reasons). Then the nurse set up a video on the television about fall risks. This was new, but I'll admit, I didn't watch it.

The television is playing the fall risk video

Finally, it was time to go for my PICC line. The PICC line takes a bit of explaining, so that will have to wait for my next post. In the mean time, I'll just say I've been feeling much better since I got out of the hospital and I'm back to enjoying my summer. I hope all of you are too!