I wish I was an octopus

 These are the times I wish I was an octopus 🐙 ...can that be my #FindAWayNotAnExcuse idea today?😅🤷🏻‍♀️Today's events came a lot sooner that I'd thought they would. It's been over three years since I first began having regular infusions and blood tests, each time needing to take blood, cannulate and enter the veins with a needle once if not usually multiple times. 

Regular IV access causes our veins to begin to form scar tissue from the repeated stabbing, making the skin and veins much tougher and harder to enter the more you continue to enter them. We've struggled to get bloods from me successfully for over a year now, often needing several nurses to have a try on both arms multiple times a week and joking that I had the veins of a 70year old patient.

It's taken a total of 8 attempts to try and get blood this morning at hospital for my potassium infusion, the sample we did get then hemolyzed (the sample blood was damaged) meaning we didn't have a test results and I couldn't have my usual two bags. We've had to go home without a blood sample or full dose of potassium and have been told to try and get a sample tomorrow locally and then infusion Friday (by then it will have been 8 days with no potassium- I'd usually have 6 bags in that space of time). Without any IV access at all I can't have the potassium infusions that keep my heart going and keep me alive, I thought this would be months away but maybe I was just blissfully ignorant to how much of a battering they've taken...I could really do with being an octopus and having a few extra limbs at this point!🙈 8 fresh puncture wounds later and we decided to call it a day, go home for the night and just hope that my bloods weren't critically low.

For now though it's a case of hoping we can get some IV access tomorrow and Friday, as today we just couldn't. If an emergency occurs where I need urgent fluids and treatments directly into the bloodstream (just like my potassium infusions) then at the moment we have no chance of being able to. I'm hoping my local consultant will get back to me tomorrow so that we can address the issue as it won't get any better and look into placing a semi permanent line if necessary that will stay in.

Onwards and upwards, I've said if the nurse can get blood tomorrow I'll buy her a bottle of gin! 🍹