WE DID IT!!!

My brave son Devin and I accessed and flushed his port (mostly) by ourselves yesterday!

On Wednesday this big box of medical supplies arrived by courier. Upland Hills Home Health was coming out on Thursday to train me how to flush Devin's port (it needs to be done monthly if not used for hydration during an episode), and we needed all these supplies. Thursday morning (yesterday) I woke up with a raging migraine, scared half to death that I was going to mess up badly and hurt Devin while learning to access the port. It's a scary thought to stick a needle in your child, let me tell you! It's totally different if someone else does it, but knowing how brave Devin is, I shouldn't have been scared, but I was.
The nurse arrived around 11am, and we started doing paperwork and she asked me tons of questions about Devin's medical history. After we did that, it was time for me to put on my gloves and get to work! I had Devin lay down on my bed, while the nurse trained me to get all the supplies ready and what to do with each one. Once it was time to put the needle in, she forgot to tell me not to hold on to a certain part of it, and it kept slipping, and the needle wasn't going in. I ended up gettting it halfway in myself, and she did the rest. Then I took over with getting a blood return, then doing the saline and heparin flushes. Everything went very well, and afterward I told Devin he could go play his Wii for being such a good patient. He ran out of there so fast!!!
In an effort to get all his supplies more organized, I went to Target and bought a hanging shoe bag and some labels, and organized everything as I would need them for flushes, for episodes, etc. It turned out pretty well.




During an episode, home health said they'll come out and help me get set up for the IV infusion he'll need, and they're also going to ask if I would be allowed to push IV meds in case he can't tolerate the orally dissolving tablets we have for him. Then we could really avoid a hospital visit! They'd just have to come out once or twice a day to make sure things were going well, and maybe do a quick exam on him. I'd do anything to stay out of the hospital and make life easier on all of us.

Love to you all,
Nurse Kristine *Ü*