Learning to flush the lumens

Happy Valentine's Day!  Here it is, early morning, and for some reason I can't sleep, so I decided to come out in the living room and do an entry.  I love early mornings when it is still quiet. 

So John is still doing well.  So well that the Physician's Assistant has said that he should start coming to 'day hospital' every other day now, starting on Wednesday!  That will give us a day of rest in between the days we will have to go to the hospital.  How nice.  After my chores are done for that day I will get to rest!  And John can rest.  He will like that.  We are also going to start going to go for little walks each day, because the nurses suggested that John do that.  

One thing that is interesting about John going every other day is that I will be flushing off John's lines when he is not in the hospital that day.  This will be for as long as he has the chest port in.  I have heard that some people have their chest ports in for a year!  Anyway, yesterday was the first time I did it by myself.  Well, John and I did it together, back at Hope Lodge.  I was kind of proud of myself.  It is a very simple thing to most, but kind of daunting to me, kind of scary.

In the chest port there are two lines hanging down.  At the bottom of each one is something called a lumen.  These lumens must be kept sterile.  They also must be kept clamped so the blood flow goes back to the heart.  They must be flushed with saline and heprin (I have no idea if I spelled that right) so that no blood clots form.  After they are flushed, they must be reclamped.  The saline and heprin have to be pushed through with these syringe type things.  

If you want to get a little bit of a picture, the chest port has already been surgically implanted into John.  And to stay in place it has stitches around it.  Then the lines come hanging out of the chest port.  They are tubes.  At the ends of the tubes are the lumens.  One is red and one is white.  They are used to draw blood, oradd fluids.  Their purpose is so that there is easy access to the patient, and so the patient doesn't have to get stuck hundreds of times with needles, but just gets treatment through the central line (chest port). 

Anyway, I felt very nurselike while practicing flushing out the lumen yesterday at day hospital.  Then the nurse gave us a little supplies to take to Hope Lodge to practice.  I practiced last night.  You know, John remembered more than I did, lol.  But I called 'Critical Care' yesterday, told them John would be going every other day soon, and they said they would be out on Wednesday to show me again how to do the flushing of the line, and to bring me supplies.  After they show me how to do it, then they are going to watch me do it until I get real comfortable with doing it.  I am real glad I have 'Critical Care'.  'Critical Care' is a service that comes to your home and helps you out with nurses, supplies, etc.  It is paid for by your insurance company. 

So in other news, today is the day John will get the results of the mixed chimerism test.  We are both waiting in anticipation to hear the results.  It will show how much he has engrafted.  That means they are hoping that 90% of the stem cells would be the donor's instead of his.  They did say it was still very early after the transplant and it would be okay if it was not 90% at this stage yet.  

So that's about it.  John and I are both doing well.  Today we are going to have a nice Valentine's Day.  A simple one.  We don't have presents for each other, but we are going to have a pork chop dinner together, with a baked potato and sour cream, and spinach.  Oh, and I got a chocolate cake!  Gotta have chocolate!

Well gotta run, I gotta get ready for Day Hospital with John, everyone have a nice Valentine's Day, and love one another,  Krissy  :)