Nurse Diaz, WTF...
OK, so I went to the hospital a few weeks ago, and they kept me in for a few days, and then they let me go because I was going absolutely nuts and there's a really nice outpatient place that just opened near me where I could do my ongoing IV therapy.
I did therapy at the outpatient place for a while, but I have terrible veins: small, deep, and they tend to collapse and disappear if I'm cold, dehydrated, tired, upset, or if a small child anywhere in North America asks his mother for a cookie. So I got a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) put in, and now I do it at home. A pharmacy delivers everything I need. I have my very own interlocking-cardboard-tube IV pole on plastic wheelie-legs; I know how to activate my meds, hang saline bags, purge lines, and flush my PICC.
I'm a fucking rock star at this home IV stuff.
I've had a PICC before, but I didn't need it long enough to start home treatment that time. I am so glad to not have to commute out to Langley hospital for their 10AM sessions. This time 'round, I've taught palmer_kun to do everything in case I need help, but I've got a foot-long extender tube attached so I can get it all done myself. It looks really strange when it's coiled up and taped to my arm; it's a lumpy thing in my sleeve.
People at work have been both fascinated and repelled, and I find myself explaining that I can't actually feel it inside my body, and the only thing I do feel is a bit of fading soreness from the incision and the occasional pulling sensation from the various adhesive things keeping all of the exterior bits in place.
Ooh, I forgot: about a week after I got the PICC in, I developed a red patch around the incision, and there was a bit of pus-y discharge. I wound up going to the hospital, and the emerg doctor had it pulled. Removal turned out not to be necessary, which I would've loved to know beforehand, because it meant I had to have another regular IV started so I could go home and do my meds for the day.
I have to tell you, I have a fairly severe phobia of needles. I can almost consider using a syringe on myself, if it's something like an insulin shot, which is straight through the skin and into fat. I give myself that type of injection, using an insulin pen, at least three times every day. I cannot look at or pick up any needle that's meant to go in my veins, and I can't handle another person trying to give me a subcutaneous shot unless I'm well distracted and it's extremely quick. Additionally, because phobias are completely fucking irrational and mine is even more convoluted than most I've heard of, I CAN handle letting someone put in an IV, but only so long as it's not in my wrists or hands. Forearms? Sure. Inner elbow? OK. I just can't watch it happen, or see the needle they're going to use to do the job.
So I'm in the emergency room, and I'd like to go home, but I need an IV before I can do that. So they talked it over and decided to get the IV nurse, whose job is doing IVs to come down and do her thing, because she'd have the easiest time of it.
The IV nurse arrived after maybe an hour. I told her I knew I was making her job tougher, but I could take a dozen pokes if she had to do it, as long as she stayed away from my wrists and hands. The first thing she did was grab my arm, expose my inner wrist, and start scrubbing it with the little alcohol swab-thing. I reminded her of the no-go areas; she grunted and moved up to my inner arm, out of the scary area. Then she reached over to her little cart and picked up the needle, and waved it at me. "This is what I'm using," she said.
I started to panic, and startled the woman in the next seat, but got myself under control. The IV nurse dropped my arm and got her equipment in order, then grabbed my wrist again and started scrubbing the entire inner surface of my arm, wrist-to-elbow. So far, no big deal. I looked away, because that's part of the process.
The bitch stuck the thing in my fucking wrist.
I tried so hard not to freak out, I really did. It's fucking humiliating to lose control of yourself in front of fifty people, particularly when the person who's caused you to flip out is treating you like shit on her shoe, and she's part of the fucking staff and they're all on her side.
I begged her to take it out, and she kept taping it down, and I begged more, and she said, "Why would I take it out when I've got it in already?" Finally I just couldn't stand it, and I shoved her hand away and yanked it out. I'm pretty sure I actually screamed, because everyone was staring. She made a noise of disgust, threw her hands up, and said, "Fine! You're not getting an IV." And then she fucked off, like I'd just insulted her terribly.
My wrist, of course, bled like crazy, and I sat there in tears, shaking like a fucking leaf, clutching my bleeding wrist with my other hand and wishing I could just die already, because nobody would come near me. After a few minutes, a nurse gave me a stack of little gauze pads to use for the blood, and then everyone ignored me for forty minutes, possibly hoping I'd sink through the floor. I certainly wanted to.
At the time, I just wanted to be invisible. Looking back, I would've appreciated it if anyone had come over and talked to me, or asked if I was OK, or treated me like someone who'd just had something scary happen, instead of leaving me to try to calm down on my own. I sat there with bloody hands and a small stack of gauze for a couple of hours, horribly embarrassed and scared. Eventually, I had to ask another nurse (while still half-crying) to please see if someone else could just try to get a line in, because it was five in the fucking morning at this point, and I'd been at the hospital since about 9PM the night before.
So that nurse went off and got a setup, and SHE put in a fucking IV line with no problem at all. It was on the outer side of my left arm, I barely felt it going in, and if the IV nurse had simply listened for five fucking seconds, I could've been out of the hospital three hours earlier, and nobody would've had to put up with my panicky bullshit.
And just think, I've progressed with my phobia. I used to be unable to deal with IV lines at all. Now I can ignore them in my arms, for the most part.
I'm pretty angry about the whole thing, and not just at IV Nurse. I'm pissed at the staff who ignored me after I'd clearly been scared out of my mind. I'm mad at myself, because I hate when I get bent out of shape like that. I always feel like I should be able to control myself, and I just couldn't. I feel small and stupid and useless, and nobody wants to comfort a forty-ish fat woman when she's made a scene. It's clearly her own fucking fault if she's kicking up a fuss, and she's only looking for attention, blah blah blah.
What-the-fuck-ever. See if I ever go back to Surrey Memorial. It's Royal Columbian from now on; they've never made me feel like an attention-seeking asshole just because I need them to listen to me.
After all of that, I went back to the outpatient place for another week, and then I got another PICC, so I'm back to doing it at home. And I love the people at the outpatient place, because they can actually hear words like phobia and understand that it's necessary to work around my limits.
I did therapy at the outpatient place for a while, but I have terrible veins: small, deep, and they tend to collapse and disappear if I'm cold, dehydrated, tired, upset, or if a small child anywhere in North America asks his mother for a cookie. So I got a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) put in, and now I do it at home. A pharmacy delivers everything I need. I have my very own interlocking-cardboard-tube IV pole on plastic wheelie-legs; I know how to activate my meds, hang saline bags, purge lines, and flush my PICC.
I'm a fucking rock star at this home IV stuff.
I've had a PICC before, but I didn't need it long enough to start home treatment that time. I am so glad to not have to commute out to Langley hospital for their 10AM sessions. This time 'round, I've taught palmer_kun to do everything in case I need help, but I've got a foot-long extender tube attached so I can get it all done myself. It looks really strange when it's coiled up and taped to my arm; it's a lumpy thing in my sleeve.
People at work have been both fascinated and repelled, and I find myself explaining that I can't actually feel it inside my body, and the only thing I do feel is a bit of fading soreness from the incision and the occasional pulling sensation from the various adhesive things keeping all of the exterior bits in place.
Ooh, I forgot: about a week after I got the PICC in, I developed a red patch around the incision, and there was a bit of pus-y discharge. I wound up going to the hospital, and the emerg doctor had it pulled. Removal turned out not to be necessary, which I would've loved to know beforehand, because it meant I had to have another regular IV started so I could go home and do my meds for the day.
I have to tell you, I have a fairly severe phobia of needles. I can almost consider using a syringe on myself, if it's something like an insulin shot, which is straight through the skin and into fat. I give myself that type of injection, using an insulin pen, at least three times every day. I cannot look at or pick up any needle that's meant to go in my veins, and I can't handle another person trying to give me a subcutaneous shot unless I'm well distracted and it's extremely quick. Additionally, because phobias are completely fucking irrational and mine is even more convoluted than most I've heard of, I CAN handle letting someone put in an IV, but only so long as it's not in my wrists or hands. Forearms? Sure. Inner elbow? OK. I just can't watch it happen, or see the needle they're going to use to do the job.
So I'm in the emergency room, and I'd like to go home, but I need an IV before I can do that. So they talked it over and decided to get the IV nurse, whose job is doing IVs to come down and do her thing, because she'd have the easiest time of it.
The IV nurse arrived after maybe an hour. I told her I knew I was making her job tougher, but I could take a dozen pokes if she had to do it, as long as she stayed away from my wrists and hands. The first thing she did was grab my arm, expose my inner wrist, and start scrubbing it with the little alcohol swab-thing. I reminded her of the no-go areas; she grunted and moved up to my inner arm, out of the scary area. Then she reached over to her little cart and picked up the needle, and waved it at me. "This is what I'm using," she said.
I started to panic, and startled the woman in the next seat, but got myself under control. The IV nurse dropped my arm and got her equipment in order, then grabbed my wrist again and started scrubbing the entire inner surface of my arm, wrist-to-elbow. So far, no big deal. I looked away, because that's part of the process.
The bitch stuck the thing in my fucking wrist.
I tried so hard not to freak out, I really did. It's fucking humiliating to lose control of yourself in front of fifty people, particularly when the person who's caused you to flip out is treating you like shit on her shoe, and she's part of the fucking staff and they're all on her side.
I begged her to take it out, and she kept taping it down, and I begged more, and she said, "Why would I take it out when I've got it in already?" Finally I just couldn't stand it, and I shoved her hand away and yanked it out. I'm pretty sure I actually screamed, because everyone was staring. She made a noise of disgust, threw her hands up, and said, "Fine! You're not getting an IV." And then she fucked off, like I'd just insulted her terribly.
My wrist, of course, bled like crazy, and I sat there in tears, shaking like a fucking leaf, clutching my bleeding wrist with my other hand and wishing I could just die already, because nobody would come near me. After a few minutes, a nurse gave me a stack of little gauze pads to use for the blood, and then everyone ignored me for forty minutes, possibly hoping I'd sink through the floor. I certainly wanted to.
At the time, I just wanted to be invisible. Looking back, I would've appreciated it if anyone had come over and talked to me, or asked if I was OK, or treated me like someone who'd just had something scary happen, instead of leaving me to try to calm down on my own. I sat there with bloody hands and a small stack of gauze for a couple of hours, horribly embarrassed and scared. Eventually, I had to ask another nurse (while still half-crying) to please see if someone else could just try to get a line in, because it was five in the fucking morning at this point, and I'd been at the hospital since about 9PM the night before.
So that nurse went off and got a setup, and SHE put in a fucking IV line with no problem at all. It was on the outer side of my left arm, I barely felt it going in, and if the IV nurse had simply listened for five fucking seconds, I could've been out of the hospital three hours earlier, and nobody would've had to put up with my panicky bullshit.
And just think, I've progressed with my phobia. I used to be unable to deal with IV lines at all. Now I can ignore them in my arms, for the most part.
I'm pretty angry about the whole thing, and not just at IV Nurse. I'm pissed at the staff who ignored me after I'd clearly been scared out of my mind. I'm mad at myself, because I hate when I get bent out of shape like that. I always feel like I should be able to control myself, and I just couldn't. I feel small and stupid and useless, and nobody wants to comfort a forty-ish fat woman when she's made a scene. It's clearly her own fucking fault if she's kicking up a fuss, and she's only looking for attention, blah blah blah.
What-the-fuck-ever. See if I ever go back to Surrey Memorial. It's Royal Columbian from now on; they've never made me feel like an attention-seeking asshole just because I need them to listen to me.
After all of that, I went back to the outpatient place for another week, and then I got another PICC, so I'm back to doing it at home. And I love the people at the outpatient place, because they can actually hear words like phobia and understand that it's necessary to work around my limits.