The Value of Continuity

After my second walk on Thursday, the PCA, Regina, changed the linens on the bed while I sat in the chair. Then she helped me back in be. Unfortunately, she never plugged the IV pole back in.

We took the IV pole with us on my walk, so it ran on batteries. I don't know how long the battery charge on the IV lasts, but some time Thursday afternoon, it stopped working. And some time after that, I noticed it. It didn't beep. I would have noticed that sooner.

Once I saw that the IV wasn't working, I pushed the call button, and reported the problem. My nurse arrived a few minutes later.

She fiddled a little with the IV, and plugged it in. Then she just restarted it. She looked at my hand, and asked about pain. There wasn't any pain in my hand. So she said we would hope for the best, and left it as it was.

A bit later, maybe half an hour, I noticed that my left hand felt tight and swollen. So I pushed the call button again. By the time the nurse got there, my hand was almost round. I could only bend my fingers a little. The IV clearly wasn't going into the vein. Something went wrong when the IV was left off for too long.

The nurse tried to place a new IV in my right hand. Actually, she didn't have much trouble with that. I saw the ultrasound wand she used to locate the veins, and it was remarkable, showing every little vein all over the back of my hand. She pushed in the needle, and advanced the catheter, and I had a new IV.

Unfortunately, the tape she placed over the IV didn't stick very well. The first IV had been placed before the operation on Tuesday, and the tape was still firmly attached until the IV had to be removed because it stopped flowing. But the new one just didn't take. The nurse added more tape, eventually trying at least three different kinds, to get it attached well enough to hold it in place. But something about the way I was sweating and all the oils on my skin was interfering with the tape.

For the rest of the day Thursday, the IV in my right hand kept working, but I had to keep pressing the tape down again, and hold the hand still as much as possible. I also held my left hand up a lot, hoping the swelling would go down. As I settled in to sleep Thursday night, there wasn't any noticeable change, but I wasn't in any pain, except when I coughed or moved too fast. And I was able to get up to go to the bathroom. Only with assistance, mostly with someone watching, in case something happened. But I could begin to see that normal life would return. It was a distant vision at that point, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't be in that same, miserable state forever.

But I had a terrible time sleeping that night.