Reasons I Decided How to Access Matthew's Port-A-Cath Myself
(written in September 2003)
--We live in a rural area where the local ER nurses do not have sufficient experience in accessing Port-A-Caths on children. We live 3 hours from PCMC and when Matthew gets a fever, we have to go to our local ER first.
--We had several bad experiences in the local ER during Matthew's first treatments of leukemia. The main problem was that the ER nurses just don't have the knowledge of how to access ports, especially on a child. They are trained to do them, but do not see them often enough here in rural Utah to do them competently on a child. An adult can handle numerous attempts, but a sick child cannot. After many times trying to access it, his Emla cream has worn off and when he is sick, his normal tolerance level is nill. Also, it really is not fair to ask the nurses to be able to competently access a child's port when they never have any practice doing them.
--After these bad experiences, I considered learning how to access his port in order to alleviate Matthew's pain when having to go to the ER here in Vernal. It would also relieve my stress knowing that it would be done right the first time, but I couldn't bring myself to poke my own child.
--Since his relapse, I knew that he would need countless more blood draws and who knows how many times we would end up in the ER. Right at the first of his relapse, Kirk and I discussed my learning how to do this for Matthew's sake with the oncology nurses at PCMC. They wholeheartedly agreed that it would be to Matthew's and our benefit if I could learn how to do this.
--With supervision and encouragement from several oncology nurses at PCMC, I successfully learned how to to access Matthew's port. It was not easy to learn how to do this on my own child. The first several times, I had to picture in my mind that I was in fact a nurse learning how to do this and that Matthew was another person's child. I honestly had to visualize this in my mind. Also knowing that I wasn’t hurting him because his skin was numb with Emla Cream helped me get over my initial fears of accessing him. It was not easy and it took a LOT of getting used to doing this on my own child.
--After learning how, Matthew always wants me to access him—even when we are at Primary Children’s for chemo. He won’t let any of the chemo nurses there do it…only mom. They have no problems with me accessing him and they always say that they are glad I learned how.
--Matthew's home health supply company sends me what I need to access his port. They are wonderful. They send everything I need for sterile accesses, and they usually send around 6 or 7 access kits at a time, so I have everything on hand. I access him at home, put the blood sample in a vial, take it to the lab at the hospital and drop it off. He has a standing order from PCMC for blood work. Then I go back about 30 minutes later and get a copy of his counts.
I am so glad I learned how to access his port because it gives me peace of mind! I know that if we have to go to the local ER, that Matthew will never have another bad experience with accessing his port. I have control over some aspect of his care and KNOW that it will be done correctly, and will be done by someone who loves him very much. Matthew and I are both pros at it now and it isn't a big deal anymore. We both had things to learn with this. He used to have to squeeze someone's fingers while I accessed it and now he doesn't even need to do that anymore.
