You mean your line would not draw back or the drawing back was the problem? Our supply company haven't acted like we will draw back...but hospital has and also has been doing that. I'm scared to go home but also am so tired of living in the hospital. Did something someone did at a clinic give the infection, or happen while at home. The tpn nurse here said to check his temp within hour of messing with line. If infection was introduced she said fever will happen by an hour or so.
Giving the TPN infusion was never a problem. It always went in fine.
There are two opinions on drawing back. One is don't do it because it pulls blood into the line, which may then clot. The other is to do it to verify that a clot has not already formed at the end of the tube. Hard to say which is "best." Seems like two sides of the same coin to me.
My process was to flush both lines with saline first. Then do a draw back, just enough to see a tiny bit of blood. Then flush again. Run the TPN infusion. Upon disconnection, flush again and put the heparin in the lines, and end by capping-off.
The nurses did a draw back on the line every time they touched it when we were in the hospital. It wasn't part of our PICC line training, so I didn't do it for the first couple of weeks. The first time the nurse couldn't do a draw back check during a dressing change after we came home, I was trained how to do it and was told why it was important. So I did it from then on.
We had a nurse come to the house to do dressing changes until Gus returned to school. I would take Gus to our local clinic for dressing changes after that. Although there were a couple of times when I had to do the dressing change myself. I was really afraid at first because there is so much at stake, but it really isn't rocket science and it was fine.
I can't be 100% positive about how he acquired the bacterial (staph) infection. Checking temp a few times after doing the dressing change sounds like good advice.
My hind sight observation is that we need to be able to de-clot the line locally, when necessary. Having to take him to the hospital (100 miles away) for a nurse to push a de-clotting agent through the line seems like an unnecessary step.
Hope that helps.
Cheryl VT
