Home Health

Hey there folks.

I know it has been a while since I blogged but I truly have been very busy. When I am busy the blog is always the first thing to be put on the back burner. So, if you have been following along with me on  Instagram or Facebook you know that my daughter has had some health issues lately. My daughter has been hearing impaired since birth and the many ear procedures have caused issues with the inner ears. She is in the care of a great team in Kansas City now. Without getting too much into all the details I wanted to talk about Home Health.

My daughter needed IV antibiotics for a 4 week period. Missing that much school for a hospitalization made us all a bit nervous. A friend of mine was a Home Health Nurse and suggested we ask about going that route. All I knew about home health was from my time in Nursing School. It involved me cleaning out the 8 cat litter boxes of a hoarder. It was gross and she had more issues than my little visits could solve. After that I really never gave Home Health another thought.

Lynnea assured me that Home Health has come a long way. Indeed it has! In my mind I was prepared to program pumps and hang IV bags...but I was in for a delightful surprise when the Big Box was delivered to our door. It contained everything we needed already premixed and ready to go for one week of treatments. We just had to find a spot in the fridge for the little balloons of antibiotics. From then on the medicine was delivered to our door via UPS.

The first dose of medicine was given in the hospital after Her PICC line was installed in her arm. The Home Health Nurse arrived later to our house and showed us how to set it all up and what to do. It is an entirely needless system and is just amazing to me. No pumps at all required. The little balloon/grenade is pressurized and after cleaning the port of her PICC line, flushing the line with a syringe of Normal Saline, we twist the Medication tubing into the PICC let the medicine flow until empty (about 30 min) flush again with another syringe of Normal Saline and finally the last syringe of Heparin. It is essential to keep the PICC clean so it is cleaned with the alcohol wipes before each treatment and injection. The Nurse has come to the house to draw blood for the lab tests and do dressing changes. but other that that is has been just my husband and I doing everything. It is such a simple treatment and has had such a mild effect to my daughters day to day activities. I now look at Home Health with new eyes.

Emma is doing super! She is such a trooper. Thank you all for all the kind words and support both here in town and via social media.

xo,
Tia