UPDATE TO: "Get a PICC line", they said. "You'll love it", they said.

Three days after my dressing change I ended up getting it wet in the shower.  I blow dried it immediately and didn't think it was a big deal but then I thought:  'Don't be an idiot....with your luck you'll contract the Bubonic Plague!'  So I called Sharon, my nurse who is new to the nursing game and shadows more experienced nurses.

She told me to text her a picture of the dressing, which I did, and she said she'd be right over with a senior nurse.  When they arrived the senior nurse looked at my dressing and asked me, "Do you think you accomplished anything by blow drying this?"  Ummm......

She turned out to be quite funny, quite snappy, and quite smart.  I mentioned that flushing was also pretty difficult and she looked at my PICC set up and said "This has got to go.  Did you see this huge kink here?"  Ummm....  She told me that's what I need to look for whenever I have problems flushing the line.

I told her about my heart palpitations and how I slept.  She explained that that can happen with some patients especially people like me who sleep with that arm tucked tightly beneath their head. 

I told her my arm hurts with all those hard plastic pieces digging into my skin and she said "No wonder!" Quickly and efficiently she removed one of my extenders (For some reason I had the 2 lines attached to 2 short extenders which were attached to 2 long extenders). The way she hooked it up, the extenders were not as long as they had been but still long enough to get the job done, and all that extra plastic, tubing, caps and clamps were suddenly gone.  She then added a padded bandage to the underside of my arm to prevent the remaining plastic pieces from digging into my skin.

   I instantly felt more comfortable; a lot less pain.

Wait--there's more!  Without my even telling this magical nurse that my arm band constantly slides down into the crook of my arm, she noticed the imprint of the netting there and said, "I see your PICC cover keeps sliding down.  Here, I'm gonna show you a better way to do this."  And she did!  My cover NEVER slips down now and overall the PICC line situation seems a lot more tolerable.  I still don't love having a PICC line but maybe I don't hate it anymore either.

  

Who knew?