PICC Lines | Pick your PICC Lines.

This was a week of picc lines. (Incidentally, I should be grateful. Having a picc line with a good source of milrinone does make me feel better. So, being connected to a tube full time is not that bad.) I went in to the hospital on Monday because the area where my original picc in my right arm that I received 6 weeks ago was becoming irritated and red. We don’t want an infection so we decided to pull the picc and put a new one in my left arm. Only this time, I was not sedated like last time so I do remember the experience. Most adults aren’t sedated. But, I’m sort of a baby when it comes to needles and wires being thread through my veins so I usually beg for it. But, I manned up and went for it without sedation. We did the procedure in the cath lab. Needless, to say they gave me several shots that numb the skin before inserting the wiring and eventual picc. Like at the dentist when he numbs your gums before he drills. It wasn’t that bad. I went home 30 minutes later. Of course, my wife heard me say the whole ride home, “That wasn’t fun.” Oh well, I was happy to be home. After a few hours we noticed the leaking, slow leaking watery substance coming from where the picc was inserted. My wife, who is my home-health care nurse (lucky me), ended up changing the dressing over the next few days 6 times because of the leaking until yesterday I went in and had that picc removed and a new one placed in my right arm above my elbow where the original one was. Needless to say, the big needle wasn’t that bad and I made it home to watch the University of Utah destroy Alabama in a much-deserved BCS bowl. Let’s just hope this new picc doesn’t leak either. It’s only been a little more than 12 hours.

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A PICC is a long, thin, flexible tube known as a catheter. It is inserted into one of the large veins of the arm near the bend of the elbow. It is then slid into the vein until the tip sits in a large vein just above the heart.

The space in the middle of the tube is called the lumen. Sometimes the tube has two or three lumens (known as double or triple lumen). This allows different treatments to be given at the same time. At the end of the tube outside the body, each lumen has a special cap, to which a drip line or syringe can be attached. Sometimes there is a clamp to keep the tube closed when it is not in use.