Its out!

Today I was up mega early to get to the hospital for 8.30 to have my Hickman Line removed.  This is something I have been really looking forward to; although it has worked excellently and is far more discreet than the PICC line, it was a final reminder of the treatment and i wanted it OUT!  I had to have a blood test on Monday to ensure that my platelet levels were improving so that they knew it would heal ok.  My platelets are still relatively low but were high enough for the procedure to go ahead.

I knew that it wouldn't be a very nice procedure as there is a small cuff that lies just under the skin that the tissue adheres to, this keeps the line in place.  The nurse needs to make a little cut under the skin and then release the cuff before she can pull the line out.  This happens when you are awake, although you do have a local anaesthetic and can be sedated if you wish.  So I was preparing myself overnight for this!

We arrived bright and early and the lovely nurse Esme took me into the room where she was going to take it out.  I had decided to not be sedated as I have found that it doesn't really have much of an affect on me.  She laid me down and cleaned the area and explained that she would make a small T-cut coming from the hole where the line exits my skin.  She did this quickly and it was time to remove the cuff.  This was the tricky bit. My body had done an excellent job of adhering to the cuff so Esme prepared herself for lots of cutting to remove it!  It was a horrible sensation; I didn't feel the pain but felt the sensation of her tugging at the cuff to see if it had loosened. 

As I am sure you are aware I haven't had the best history with lines, so it seemed inevitable that things would not be easy this time either. As Esme was releasing the cuff she was pulling the line out from under my skin and she got to a point where the line was out of my vein, but the cuff was still attached to my tissue. She said she had never seen this before and clearly my body is good at repairing itself. Trust me to be unusual!  So I had to endure more cutting of tissue and tugging but finally it was OUT.  Esme glued my incision up and I was ready to go.  It was weird saying goodbye to Esme and all the nurses again, I will definitely be popping in to say hello to them quite a lot.

So another hurdle jumped on my new road to recovery, and a very welcome hurdle it was.

Much Love Cx