IVs at home

This is what IVs at home look like. In times past we've had to administer the IVs up to 5 times a day. This round is only 3 times a day - every 8 hours. Here is a picture of Brett's Broviac central line (tunneled catheter). I have also added pictures of the other types to my Broviacs, PICCs, and Ports, oh my! page.

The catheter actually comes out of his skin (called the "Site") underneath the circle, which is called a "Bio-patch." It has some extra antibiotic on it to reduce further infection, mostly used while in the hospital.

This round is only one drug, and we administer every 8 hours. I have chosen 7am, 3pm, and 11pm. Basically, we  flush with saline, hook up the medicine, let it run about 30 minutes, then unhook and flush again with saline and heparin. That way we're in bed at 11:30 at the latest and don't have to get up super early, because this round is happening over Christmas Break from school.

The medicine comes in this pressure-filled ball, called an elasti-ball, or elastomeric ball. To me, this is supremely more convenient than the kind that comes in pre-filled syringes that we have to prime and put inside a very heavy pump that runs on "D" batteries. It looks as if it was made in the 70s. In fact, it probably actually was. 

Anyways, this is great because it's very light. We hook it up to Brett's broviac and put it in his backpack, and he just wears it around for the 30 minutes. At night we just lay it beside him in the bed. The backpack is for his g-tube feed, which is still going for 18 hours a day, so he must wear it around 6 waking hours. Don't feel bad for him, though. The backpack is his freedom from an IV pole.