Self-Advocacy, Phlebitis, and Infusions

"Ouch! Sorry I didn’t mean to jump like that.  The pain was unexpected."  The infusion nurse Kay (not her real name) said, “that’s okay, we don’t need to flush the rest of this saline.”  It was the end of an extremely long and stressful day.  Let’s start from the beginning.

There I sat in the chair, cheerfully ready to greet a long day.  Kay checks me in and hands me the lunch order form.  It is Rituxan infusion day and I’m ready to get some B-cells depleted.  Symptoms had begun to return after a lovely remission and I was anxious to get to that point again.

Kay got the supplies ready and prepared to get an IV started.  I had promised myself at home that I would not let her try to stick me again.  Her track record was 0/4.  And my previous visit took two nurses and six sticks to get an IV started.

“Who was the other nurse which the head nurse tried to call last time but wasn’t here?  Can we call her to get the IV started?”

“Oh, she’s really busy.  She wouldn’t be able to come down here for this,” says Kay.  Darn it if I let her try three times to get an IV started.  That’s 0/7 now; and yes, I’m keeping track

Read this post in its entirety:

Living with RA: Infusions, Phlebitis, and Self-Advocacy


I also discussed this situation three weeks ago on the blog in the post Phlebitis after Intravenous Treatment.  BTW, I'm on my 2nd round of antibiotics as the 1st round was not quite enough and the infection noticeably began to grow again.  I have three more days remaining and there shouldn't be any other little infections ANYWHERE in my body now.