Napi Horsemanship

I got my first central line in Billings. A central line was right up there with things I never wanted to do in my lifetime. It’s pretty much a tube that goes through a vein to the entrance of your heart. It’s used for chemotherapy, blood draws, and transfusions. If you’re in and out of the hospitals it’s your new best friend.

I was going down hill fast and when I was in Billings they still believed it might be TTP (autoimmune disease) so they put a dialysis catheter in for the treatment. When I arrived in Seattle my neck catheter was taken out and a PICC line was put in. A PICC line goes in your upper inside bicep and looks similar to the catheter that I had in my neck with two parts hanging out. It also must be dressed constantly like the neck one.

I don’t remember if I had the choice for a port or PICC, it was part of the week where I “went out on the town and don’t remember much”. Anyway, I had a PICC put in so I could receive chemotherapy. A catheter port is not the proper port for treatment. I loved my PICC line. It saved me so many blood pricks and IV’s. BUT! Knowing what I know now if I had a choice between the PICC or a port I would have just gotten the port then. A port is another central line but this one isn’t visible, it sits under the skin. The great thing about this is no more dressings and you can go swimming and get it wet. The only down fall is accessing it means a needle poke to the skin. But they give you lidocaine cream to administer an hour before the planned needle stick.

The PICC line does not work if you are an active person, and you aren’t suppose to lift heavy objects while you have this central line. I only had my PICC line for less than two months before figuring out that it wasn’t going to work for me, being a mother of a three month old especially. I made the call I didn’t want to and got a port.

Here’s a picture of the day after I got the port, TMI look away if you don’t like blood.

When receiving a central line you are given a twilight sedation so you aren’t fully awake but you aren’t asleep enough to be intubated. They also give fentanyl for pain. The procedure was simple and mostly painless. The most pain you are going to feel is from the lidocaine and then the pain is over. It’s two incisions. The lower one is the larger one you see in the picture above, this is where the port sits. The Docter cut the slit then placed the port down into a pocket of skin he made. What’s harder to see is the smaller cut above. That’s where the line to my heart was inserted then brought down behind the skin to the larger slit to the port where the two are connected. It’s almost like a form of body modification because now I have a raised round bump where my port sits under my skin.

The worse part has been the pain the two days after. They have you take the dressing off after 24 hours and 72 hours you can lift objects over five pounds. Plan to take the entire day after the procedure to rest. Even two days if you need to. Day three and I’m feeling much better pain wise.

There’s two different pains with the healing, the actual cut and then the muscle ache. Tension and pulling on the incision makes it feel like a giant paper cut, its that sting from a slice to the skin. My neck soreness came from the upper incision where they inserted the tubing.

Removing the PICC was super simple, he literally just grabbed it and pulled it out.

This is a picture from day three, you can see the discoloration under the larger incision. The stuff on the longer incision is surgical glue they used to help seal the wound.

If you’re considering what type of central line to get I would recommend the port. Everyone I’ve talked to loves their port. And if someone who hates hospitals bites the bullet and gets one to replace a central line they already have………. Just get the port.

I also heard that chemo can destroy veins so that’s another reason they recommend the port.

Three lines in less than two months has to be a new record. LOL. I do NOT recommend it though. I hope this helps someone making the decision to get a port or not. Feel free to reach out with any questions! Thank you for reading!

UPDATE 05/13/2024 : I used my port for the first time and wanted to let you know what to expect. I was five days past procedure and pretty tender and sore still. I applied the lidocaine cream when I got to the hospital. It sits on for about an hour before they poke you, so when you need to go for a blood draw make sure to do so an hour before! They also want you to put a solid glob on Saran Wrap and then over your port. You should be able to see a lot of white over your port site. Them poking to find my needle spot on my port was the most uncomfortable part of the entire procedure. I didn’t feel the needle inserted at all. It was all just pressure and tension. I had gotten my blood drawn on the inside of my elbow earlier this week and wanted to also let you know, in my experience, that the port would be my recommended option when it came to getting a vein poke or port poke. I’m sure if I put the lidocaine cream on the inside of my elbow before a draw I wouldn’t have felt that either. I wanted to give an update because I was curious myself how accessing the port was going to go. I know next time I will be all healed up at my incision site so it will be even less uncomfortable than this first time.