July 15th, the doctors put in a double lumen hickman catheter to Madi's chest. This tube went directly into her blood stream. For Madi, this meant NO MORE POKES! Each morning she would wake up around 4:30 am. to a voice that said, "LABORATORY". Within minutes she would be getting blood draws. Many times her veins would collapse. She was poked often. The central line was a happy thing (at the time). For mom, this was an overwhelming time. I was given a training on how to care for this line and sent home with a big bag full of supplies which would last for a month. The lumens needed to be cleaned and changed regularly. The dressing needed to be changed and everything had to be completely sterile. I was trained to peel off the tagaderm (which hurt Madi, clean the area with chloroprep, put a new tagaderm on and flush the lines with saline and heparin. This process took a long time and Madi would cry almost the entire time. Her skin was soft and would peel off. The chloroprep was part alcohol which would burn and sting. We had to do this every 5 days. After a few times of changing the dressing, this was second nature for me. For Madi, this was a part of her. She couldn't get wet, so she could no longer take normal baths or swim. She handled the adjustment very well.
