I don't know why I have such a "gross out" response to a Hickman line. My first medical team had covered the chance that I would need one if I was headed for a bone marrow transplant as SCCA (Seattle Cancer Care Alliance) requires a Hickman. I had no trouble with the two PICC lines that Swedish placed. Maybe it's that the Hickman enters just above the nipple on your chest rather than out on an arm. It is just so close to your heart and so sick-person-ish looking.
But Hickman they want and Hickman I got!
As they preped me for surgery I had to keep calming myself, they laid me on the table, shaved all the hair off my right breast, had me turn my head left and then they covered my head! Luckily my nurse then started the opioids and my fears subsided.
Being at the UW medical center means they have young doctors getting their first chance to perform such procedures, and from poppy blanketed brain I could hear the senior surgeon explaining that she just needed to grab the end of the line and "tunnel" it up from my breast and then to push it back down through my vein. I'm still sore from all the pushing and pulling of inexperienced hands.
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