I have no cute pictures of the kids. No reports of fun adventures. This blog is going to be seriously seriously boring for awhile.
My days are all the same. I get up and it all starts over again. On the upside, my PICC line seems to be working better than the peripheral IVs. Nurses come every few days to change the dressing. I push my own meds, I have 900 plastic syringes around the house, and conversations like this:
me: so, before I hook up the hydration to the PICC line, do I flush with 5mL saline and heparin, or just saline?
nurse: no, just saline, but after you do the slow push of zofran and after hydration, you flush with saline AND 3 to 5mL heparin and do it pulsating, don't forget to clamp the line.
it's not hard, it's just mundane.
A few folks have asked what a PICC line is, so here is a little diagram: I have a spaghetti noodle sized plastic tube about 12 inches long that runs from a vein in the middle of my bicep and rests near my heart. Through it I pump a liter of a watery version of gatorade every night and medication to help me not throw up several times a day. It works 75% of the time which is great. It doesn't take away the nausea, or give me any energy, but much of the time I can keep down my tiny meals.
If I need any lab work or if my doctor decides I am not eating enough, they can get blood from, and put calories into me through this tube. So far the only down sides are the beeping of the IV pump in the middle of the night, keeping it dry while showering -which requires a whole lot of plastic and tape and luck- and some heart palpitations that may mean I need to have the PICC pulled out a little.
I don't go anywhere, I don't do anything.
I miss being a human. I miss being able to hug my kids or my husband. The smell of other people makes it really hard to be close to anyone, even the smell of soap, even mild Johnsons baby soap makes me sick.
I miss the world. I miss my family. I miss friends. I miss contributing to the world.
I freaking hate asking my family members to fetch me things because I can't do anything for myself except sleep and pee. I hate saying "Could you please toast the bread a little more this time, it was a little soggy before." I feel like a snob at a restaurant, sending back the cranberry juice because it was a Cran Raspberry mix and that is just nasty.
My mom forgives easily, and is quite brilliant: she brought in the kids' doll house and dollies into my bedroom so I can listen to them play while I lie in bed. It's wonderful. They are such troopers.
This whole Mom No Longer Can Take Care of Us In Any Way thing has been really hard on Janie girl. My only hope and prayer is that neither child will remember this time.
They both have sat next to me on my bed while I vomited, while I was stuck with a new IV line, while I hook up my meds - to be honest, they have much stiffer spines than their Dad, who isn't able to handle much in the "medical" arena.
I will survive. Others have it worse, I know that.
I
know that.
I love getting up to the computer once or twice a week to look at your blogs. I love seeing that life and the world still exist out there. I look forward to being apart of it again some day.
And not boring the universe with lame blog posts with no pictures. I know that graphic up there doesn't count.