Permacath Stitches, Pink Lumen and Sloppiness

Thursday     2014-01-16

When my permacath was five weeks old, I noticed the flesh around its entrance was a bit raw and pinkish, each time a new dressing was on I felt the pain of tugging and pulling now and then, I’d asked nurses weather I was in the risk of infection.  I was always told that it doesn’t matter. As I detected no fever on me, I was reassured. But the pain always nagged me.

One day, another seven weeks later, I met nurse L, thanks to whom who identified that all my trouble was caused by the permacath stitches which I didn’t know that I had, which should be removed 6-8 weeks after operation. The stitches were duly undone, from that moment I was free from my woe, no more pain, and the pink disappeared gradually. One has to wonder, if it is standard procedure, how come only one person know? During this whole time, including doctor P who’s solution was only to prescribe some cream which did not help much at all.

Another curious thing was that sometimes I find my catheter lumen is pink. I seek the net, couldn’t find an answer. My observation from enough number of times which when it happened to me, let me form the conclusion, that this is due to sloppiness or poor eye sight. Each time when the lumen’s pink in colour, they were always locked by such person. I strongly recommend that certain medical personnel over 45 years of age take a regular eye sight test.

Careless person does appear from time to time. It happened to me twice that the stopper of the catheter was not screwed on properly and felt off, which gave me quite a scare. And another time nurse X even forgot to sterilise the catheter before putting me on. Normally, when such careless things happen, if it were discovered, it is already too late. Since what happened to me so far was not life threatening, I let them pass. But still one can never be sure of such a thing, one can’t help being scared and stressed out in silence.

As for today, it went as usual. I am at their beck and call, prearranged schedule can be changed easily. At 8:50am I was called to get to the hospital in half an hour instead of afternoon, luckily I live only 15 minutes from this particular hospital. Such is my precarious time table when dialysing about town. The rest of the day went without too much drama. The last few days were all above 40 degree, everybody are happier at work where one can't feel the heat.