Seeing red...

I've heard stories, from others with permanent IV lines, about the tubing disconnecting, the IV pump beeping in the middle of the night, medicine cartridges running empty, and waking up in either a pool of leaking medicine, or worse yet, a pool of their own blood. One story came from a friend who forgot to clamp the Hickman tubing before disconnecting the extension tubing. There's a little device, mine is called a BD Q-Syte, that goes on the end of the tubing that is spring-loaded and holds back the powerful pressure from one's heart. It is replaced every week to reduce the risk of infection. When a person forgets to clamp and takes this device off, blood shoots out. And I've heard, it's a lot of blood. That's why, when I change this little extension piece, I chant: "Don't forget to clamp."

Yesterday my BD Q-Syte malfunctioned on the way to my mother-in-law's house. I felt something wet on my shirt when I realized it was blood I pulled the tubing out of my shirt. Blood and medicine were leaking from the joint. We pulled up to the house and hurried in to change the piece, which we assumed had gone bad. (Thankfully I am a good patient and carry my suggested medic bag, that includes extra medical paraphernalia, tubing, a backup meter, batteries, etc., wherever we go.) We acted quickly and my husband got the Accredo nurse on the phone. She assured us we did the right thing and that the line would eventually run clear. Sure enough, the blood in the line was eventually pushed back by the medicine but it had been a relatively frightening experience.

This is the tubing I keep tucked in my shirt. The white tubing (and clamp) is part of the Hickman catheter that goes in my chest and directly to my heart. The round thing on the extension tubing is a filter. The joint between the extension and the white Hickman tubing is the BD Q-Syte device. That is the piece that malfunctioned and caused blood and medicine to leak out.