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Show 96 out the door, bumping no door jams, softly and slowly pushing over the various thresholds. Ever so softly. She is a matron no one questions or crosses as she refuses anyone else entry into my elevator. People all along the route obey her commands for quiet. We arrive with perfect timing - as we turn the comer to the surgical suite, it is my turn to go in. But even with all this precaution, because I usually go to surgery to fix a non-functioning catheter, and am therefore rather unmedicated, I only sometimes arrive at the surgical suite in a non-spasming state. I have run out of veins. The problems with monitoring my blood clotting potential as well as the administration of medications require constantly open and accessed veins but all my veins are gone. A regular IV "blows" within minutes. Central lines are painful to set and only last several days, at most, then must be replaced. Even with central lines, the tests for blood clotting factors cannot be taken from there, the line into which the blood thinning medication itself is running. The paramedics and specialized nurses who fly in the rescue helicopters, most skilled in finding veins in all sorts of difficult circumstances, are telling the doctors that something else must be done. Their needle prick attempts to find blood run up both feet in little red dotted lines. I am striped with their trying. It was a nurse from the bum unit - a friend of Faith's who comes by from time to time just to visit - who suggested the port-a-cath. Why, I have asked myself, is it a nurse who suggests such things to me and not a doctor? |
