PICC line infection

Yesterday was uneventful up until the evening, so I did not post an entry here. However, it all changed and I wound up having an interesting evening.

At about 6pm I noticed that the PICC line entry site looked a bit yukky - not nice and clean as it normally does (it is covered by a see-through gel dressing). I rang the haematology help line at UCH, and they asked my to get  doctor to look at it, and call them back. I contacted my local out-of-hours service, and got an appointment for 7:30pm. The doctor confirmed it was pus that had discharged, and he spoke with the on-call haematology registrar at UCH. They told me that I had to come to UCH right away, have the PICC line removed, and give blood samples and swabs from the site and the PICC tip. It is now about 8pm.

Rather than go all the way to UCH, I asked if my local A&E department could do what is necessary, and the UCH team agreed. This was great because I was already at the hospital (it is where the out-of-hours service is located). I was given the name of the nurse who would perform the PICC removal (it is a simple procedure), and I went across to A&E. Even though there were quite a few people waiting, I was ushered through right away/ And even though the nurse confessed she had never done it before, she seemed very competent and indeed it all went smoothly. I got home before 10pm; it would have been a much later night if I had gone to UCH. I have been given a course of antibiotics to take for 7 days.

I hope that they will insert a new PICC line prior to the transplant treatment which begins in two weeks time. It is dependent on whether the infection clears up I guess, which it should do. Luckily I do not have any other symptoms of a serious infection - I hope it was just the entry site that was affected. Time will tell I guess.