PICC Line Is In

Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. We just looked it up since we had no idea. Jon and Rebecca report that the technician cleared the room at 1:00 and turned it into a space that was fully prepared for a surgical maneuver (not exactly, but they had to poke a hole and slip a long catheter in that goes all the way from his arm to that big vein next to his port). Jon says she was extremely competent and said she could do this with her eyes closed. So now Jon is all ready to start getting his nutrition through TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition, avoiding the GI tract). They start at 9 PM in this hospital.

Jon has been dabbling in eating but no one thinks this is the real way he is going to get fed. This will be a bonus. He had soup, jello, milk, fruit cup.  Progress.

Last night was not so restful but we both slept in between the hourly visits from the various people who come to poke and measure and deliver medication and take blood and tangle with the blood pressure cuff. There is no way to know whether my presence was at all helpful but we had a companionable night, commenting on the various activities at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30. I swear, people who work in hospitals have no concept of night. And I will say that Jon was in a fine place, emotionally, this morning, despite having a low grade fever sometime in the middle of the night and being forced to take liquid Tylenol (after requesting pills repeatedly for the last four days).

Benjamin came to take a turn and I went to pick some arugula.  The WhatsApp channel was pretty quiet today and I wondered what was happening. He did have a blood transfusion and the doctor helped to push things along to get the PICC line in.  But mostly there wasn't much chatter.

On the farms, we were getting ready for the first frost and Jon told me not to come back to the hospital until I had done everything I could for the farm. So I picked some stuff, but the tiny little Vienna team had already done a heroic job, and meanwhile I got in touch with the HVAC guy because the cooler stopped working yesterday (Benjamin tried to fix it last night, following Jon's instructions, but we needed a different capacitor, apparently) and he came and diagnosed it while I hustled out to Loudoun. They didn't really need me there either, but I had decided to pick what I would have picked tomorrow morning so I could choose to come to the hospital instead of doing my usual Friday morning racing around. When I got to Loudoun I was so sleepy I could barely see straight but then when I started picking the most beautiful beets ever, I felt completely awake and alert. The air was lovely, the beets were leaping out of the ground. It was a therapeutic couple of hours.

I did take a nap on the couch before coming back to the hospital. Jon and Rebecca are ideal companions because they like watching sports and Rebecca doesn't care that Jon just switches the channels constantly. Meanwhile, I discovered what Abigail Spanberger looks like. I never watch TV.

They are non-specific about Jon's discharge plans, but we are hopeful that he might get home tomorrow. I am guessing it won't be early. But this is very good news. And he is still pretty grumpy, so everything is on the right track. For the record, it is 9:22 and no sign of TPN yet. He has been disconnected from the nutrition delivery systems for over 8 hours now. Oy.

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