light at the end of the tunnel

Mom has had her new PICC line installed, but this time it's in her left arm. The gent working on the installation said he kept encountering scar tissue along the brachial route he had chosen on the right side. The procedure started around 6:30, but because the first attempt had gone awry, the procedure wasn't finished until around 8PM.

Some nurses came in a few minutes ago and took a chest X-ray of Mom (they cooed about how cute Mom was); this image will be examined to see whether there are any problems with the new line.

Once we get the all-clear, Dad will administer Mom's daptomycin for the evening. He had planned ahead this morning, packing up and toting along the syringes and other materials necessary for Mom's antibiotic regimen. We both agreed that it would be wise to do the intravenous injections here, while at hospital, both to test the new PICC line and to be sure that help would be at hand should a problem arise. What better place to have a medical crisis than right inside a hospital, no?

So we're awaiting X-ray results and prepping to administer the dapto. After that, we'll be heading home. Mom has a new set of bandages and stockings to be applied to her upper arm to prevent her from plucking out this PICC line. Let's hope we can get Mom through the rest of her dapto regimen without incident. She has about one more week to go.

UPDATE, 9:16PM: Mom's been given the all-clear, so Dad is administering her dapto. We'll be filling out paperwork and shoving off sometime within the next 60 minutes.


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