For some reason, this whole hickman business is just scary to me. You remember the story of me getting it in (from a previous post) and how scared I was. Well I was pretty nervous today getting it out. And of course there is a story:

     The day started out getting my blood drawn at the Health Center.. no biggie. Then over to the hospital for my appointment on the second floor to get my hickman out. Just the ride to the hospital is an adventure but little did we know what lays ahead of us inside. We got to the second floor and signed in. We were told to go up a floor take two rights and a left and sign in there.. uh.. ok. So we went up a floor took two rights and a left and signed in again, we were then brought to a waiting room.. and waited a few. Then someone came and got us and brought us down a floor and into the labyrinth and I lost track of the turns. I was brought into a room that looked a lot like a supply closet with a stretcher in it. Turns out it’s the room that the nurses go to sign out their meds so nurses were in and out the whole time.. not real comforting. After a bit of this and a bit of that they start prepping the area and I start to get nervous. Of course, my new found discovery, I cry when I’m scared… which is a good thing cuz at least this lets the people know I’m not feeling all that great. They did make an effort to be nice and calm me down but.. once they started.. I was a mess. Now I’m no doctor but I would think that you need a clam patient and when your patient is almost convulsing on your table from nerves, you should pull out the drugs, no? So they snip the stitch (hurt) and give me a novocain injection (hurt hurt). At this point I have my head turned and eyes closed wishing for it to be over, while trying my hardest to control the involuntary shaking and sobbing. He pulled.. and tugged.. and pulled and muttered things like “this hickman likes you and doesn’t want to go anywhere” and I’m thinking “get this f**king thing out quickly like you promised!” and “I thought you said this was going to slide right out” of course, talking was out of the question at this point since all I could do was breathe. Eventually he worked it loose and the tail end did slide right out, my sobbing and shaking subsided, he stitched me up and pathetically put a bandage on me (which I totally have to fix soon). From the time I walked into that closet and walked out an hour had gone by… fe yuuu its over.. And next week I get to have another one put in. cant wait.