I forget sometimes that this life is extraordinary. Being sick just becomes incorporated into your life. It is impossible to survive if you are upset about it every day. It just becomes part of your routine and you learn to live with it.
I had a new IV line placed last week. My port has been accessed continuously in the same spot for three years. My skin is indurated and paper thin over the access site. I accidentally tore the needle out last month and that further irritated the skin. Since I was likely weeks away from being able to literally see the port through the hole in my chest, we opted to place a temporary IV line for me to use so I could deaccess the port to heal the skin. They put in a midline last week and deaccessed my port.
I had a PICC line for a while before I had my port. The PA who placed it was pretty terrified of my mast cells. She had been warned by the infusion nurses at the hospital. The placement itself was uneventful but I will never forget having to reassure her. It was the first time I saw a provider scared of my disease. The following day, a home IV nurse came to change the dressing and check the site. She was also scared. She asked me to hold my epipens while she changed it in case of anaphylaxis. I reassured her, too.
While I am grateful to have IV access because it keeps me out of the hospital, I had forgotten what a royal pain the ass it is to have a line in your arm. The port is easier is so many ways. I can access it and deaccess it at will. I can change the dressing myself. I can get it wet. I don’t have to deal with my pump constantly squawking that the line is occluded because I bent my arm. Blood doesn’t back up in the port line. I don’t have to constantly lock the line with heparin. I forgot the way IV Benadryl burns when it’s pushed into a smaller blood vessel. The midline is temporary but obnoxious after years of having a port.
Having the midline has brought back a lot of memories for me from around the time I got the PICC placed. One of the strategies social workers recommend for adapting to a medical device or deformity or disease is to give it a name. I named my PICC because I had to convince myself that I could learn to live with it. I named my ostomy, too. I don’t bother naming things anymore. Because it has become routine.
Sunday night, I ended up in the ER after sudden onset severe GI pain. This pain is high in the tract and much more severe than what I have experienced before, both in intensity and in duration. I went to the hospital because the pain was so bad that I honestly thought I had ruptured something. It was the kind of pain that makes you think you are dying. I was literally screaming in pain.
I spent the next day in the hospital where my screaming pain was interrupted only by intense vomiting from the pain meds. We have no idea what is causing the pain. I am not convinced that it is mast cell related. I came home last night because the hospital couldn’t do anything for me that I couldn’t do at home. The nausea and pain were still there. So I left with no answers and a lot of pain.
One of my nurses yesterday was really horrified when I told him all the things I do on a daily basis to manage my disease. He in particular was horrified that I needed so much medication and was still left with debilitating symptoms. It is only in seeing this awe reflected in the eyes of people who see so much suffering that I remember how sick I am.
Today was the longest day of the year. In many pagan traditions, the summer solstice is the day when the land of the living and the land of the dead overlap. It is a day for seeing ghosts of those who have gone before us and specters of who we used to be. A day when the past whispers to you as you walk past.
I have spent all day reading through my journals from when I had my PICC line placed. I have thought about all the ways my life has changed. In many ways it has gotten better. But it definitely changed me. There is a before and after in my identity as a chronically ill person. That timeline splits along the line extending from that date.
What’s funny is that while so many things have gotten worse in that time, a lot of things have gotten better. I am much happier. I am much less scared. I am much more independent. I am much more in control of my disease and my life.
I no longer have to convince myself everyday that I can make it through the day with a central line that everyone can see. Because it is just part of my life and it’s no longer extraordinary.