My PICC Line Is Out

July 8, 2022 - YEAH !!! One of my nurses here at my physical rehabilitation facility removed my PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) this afternoon.

July 1, 2022, was my last day of receiving intravenous antibiotic infusions every day for six weeks for a staph infection within my chest, a blood infection, and lingering osteomyelitis (a bone infection) within my left foot. I received the antibiotic through one of two ports in my PICC line, which is about 53 centimeters long (about 21 inches long). It runs from the upper part of my left arm through my veins close to my heart. The other port was supposedly to be for extracting blood for testing and for flushing the line with saline solution, but it was only used once in the hospital for blood extraction. Blood continues to be extracted here using a needle stuck in either one of my arms or in the back of one of my hands.

(In recent years, I have endured many of these six-week-long regimens for many cases of cellulitis in both of my legs individually and for the lingering osteomyelitis in my left foot.)

Why I Am In Physical Rehab

Prior to arriving at my rehab facility on June 3, 2022, I was in the hospital since May 13, 2022, enduring and recovering from two (more) surgeries last month.

I had quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery on March 9, 2022, and two plastic reconstructive surgeries in/on my chest in May 2022. For my surgery on May 19, 2022, my plastic reconstructive surgeon removed metal sternal plates from within my chest due to an infection. For my surgery on May 25, 2022, he cleaned out the remaining infection from within my chest, and he partially closed my chest by first clipping off the tips of my ribs and then by reattaching my chest muscle flaps to my body.

My surgeon used seven spaced-out sutures to close the eight-inch-long, vertical incision in my chest initiated by my open-heart surgery in March 2022 and made worse by my two subsequent surgeries in May 2022, leaving me with seven deep holes in my chest to heal. My sutures (and wound vacuum) were removed on June 20, 2022.