Teresa and those little things.....

Chronic Disorders — one set of problems leads to another set of problems....

The week of September 7, 2009, Teresa began a new seizure medicine. Early Thursday morning, September 17^th, she had a few non-stop seizures (which were not typical). Tony called her neurologist and he requested that she have blood drawn to check some things.

They accessed her port to draw the blood. When they pulled the needle out, Teresa mentioned that it hurt. The needle probably hit a blood vessel going in or coming out. In any case, the nurse covered it with a bandage.

About 5:30 pm, Tony, Teresa and I headed to an open house party at an appliance store. They featured snacks and a little circus entertainment for the guests.

About 7:30 pm Teresa said she thought she was bleeding from her port. I took her into the ladies room and peeked at her chest area. Her shirt was blood-soaked and it was spilling out onto her chest and stomach. She looked like she had been shot!

At 7:40 pm, we headed home and Teresa and Tony sat in the back of the car applying pressure to the site where they had drawn blood earlier in the day. They used a stack of napkins from the party to try to contain the blood.

Tony continued to apply pressure to get the bleeding to stop. He did it in 15-minute time increments, hoping each time it would stop bleeding.  Then, if Teresa moved, it started bleeding again. This continued through the evening as we tried to move Teresa through a bath, getting ready for bed, helping her take her pills, brushing her teeth and drinking water.

With every movement there was a re-bleed, a new set of washcloths and another nightshirt completely soaked in blood.

Once settled into bed, Tony and I took turns checking her and through the night, each time thinking the bleeding had stopped. But each time Teresa moved, even to a small degree the bleeding began again.  It was a very long night.

By 4:30 am, Friday, September 18^th, with no one getting sleep during the night, I called the Urgent Care to order two units of FFP. And, by 10:30 am that morning, Tony and Teresa had gone to get the FFP infused and had returned home. How did they infuse FFP into her? The nurse found a vein in her hand because of the problem with the port (or the area around it).

So, what happened?  Was the blood coming directly from the port?  I called the nurse who worked in the radiology area where Teresa's port was installed.  She said that if the needle hit a small blood vessel it can hurt, and it can seep blood.  No one can be sure exactly why so much blood was coming from the area around her port.  The rule of thumb is that once blood is drawn from a vein or a port, pressure must be applied to the area for several minutes to make sure it stops bleeding.  The best guess is that the right amount of pressure held on the port for the right amount of time after the blood was drawn was not done.  It's one of those little things that can get overlooked when people are busy or distracted by something else. 

Given the choice, I would have gladly traded 5 little minutes of time earlier in the day to hold a compress firmly over the port after the blood was drawn.  Had that been done, we would have probably enjoyed the party, not had to do all that laundry and of course had a full night's sleep.  It's always those little things.....