Cleaned up

Now, all the tubes and wires are gone. At least the ones who made him bedridden. The CVC (central venous catheter) was taken off this morning around eleven. The wee catheter too. And all the ECG-electrodes. Plus, the big plaster on the chest has been removed.

Hospital slang for the above makes me think of a Quentin Tarantino film. "Have you cleaned up Abbe?", I heard a nurse saying to another. "We’d better clean him up before taking him down for X-ray". Wonderful.

Still remaining on Abbe right now: A PVC (peripheral venous catheter, or a needle, as we usually call it) in the left hand and one in the left foot. They are used for taking samples, giving medicines and drips. If he doesn’t get enough liquids through his food during the day, they add what’s needed via a drip feed in the night. He has four (or is it six?) pacemaker wires left, which will come out through the skin on Abbe’s chest. An unpleasant thought, I think, that they are actually stuck to his heart. They always put them in, in case the heart starts jumping a beat, beat twice or something else unexpected. They stay until you go home, basically.

It’s only very occasionally that he has to be wired up to the pulse oximetry or blood pressure machine. Otherwise, he’s now wireless.