No More Central Line or IV Antibiotics!!

 We took Annie to her regular infectious diseases appointment that we have every 2-3 weeks to monitor her for her back infection.  This week marked 12 weeks of receiving IV antibiotic therapy which means she is transitioning to oral antibiotics now for the next 9 months.

Annie started last week on rifampin and levofloxacin, but she was up all night vomiting due to the rifampin, so we stopped that and now she's just on the levofloxacin which should still give her adequate coverage.  Annie had a full day of bad seizures on Sunday requiring 2 different emergency seizure meds, so we're hoping that's not a side effect of the levafloxacin.

So after we met with the ID doctor today, we met with a pediatric surgeon to have Annie's central line removed.
 

One last picture with her line.  This is what it looked like every day.  The dressing on it had to be changed weekly, as well as the blue microclave, with meds given daily and her line getting flushed daily.  We couldn't get these dressings wet, so bathing her was quite the challenge!  I think Annie was equally as excited to get her line removed.

The nurse took off the dressings and applied a numbing cream over the insertion site.

One of the stitches holding her line to her skin had fallen out a few weeks ago, so I had tried to be extra careful lately to not put extra strain on her line at all.  However, once the surgeon started trying to remove it, I realized the stitches were probably not necessary at all.

The tube has a little nub on it about an inch up inside of her.  Skin and other tissues had grown on to this nub making the line stick in place.  Since it wouldn't slide out easily, the doctor injected 4 shots of lidocaine which was the most painful part of the whole procedure.  Then once she was good and numb, the surgeon used some scissors to stretch out the hole in her skin where the tube was coming out.  Then he got a hemostat (some tweezers that clamp) and stuck the hemostat up into the hole about an inch to grab onto the nub.  Once he got it clamped in place (still under her skin an inch up the hole) he began twisting the tubing around several times trying to break up the attached tissues.  Finally he yanked really hard and it broke loose and the rest of the tubing came out easily.

This picture shows were the tube ran under her skin up to where it was actually inserted into her jugular vein in her neck.  We no longer have to see that tube under her skin!

Annie was a little worn out from this little procedure, but she did great!  Now no more central line!  Some steri-strips keep the hole closed until it heals up.

We are excited to not have the line in place any more since that makes her daily care more manageable.  We can now give her a normal shower and not worry about keeping anything dry.  And we now eliminate the possibility of that line getting infected. But we will definitely miss Annie's line when it comes time for her lab work!  It was great to be able to draw blood straight from her line for her weekly labs.  Now she'll have to get poked in the arm, but it will only be every 2-3 weeks.