So when you go into hospital with kidney problems and there is doubt as to you whether or not you’re drinking enough, they will put you on a saline drip to see how it affects your blood test results. And this requires a cannula. Also some medications are given through an IV. So a cannula is like a little tube that they insert into your vein by using a needle. When they put one in, they usually do a blood test at the same time. Here are a few of my stories/ tips about cannulas. Shower time= annoyance.
So since you can’t get it wet, you have to get a bit creative about how to shower when you have a cannula in. I personally prefer using two of the largest sized nurse gloves available and putting them over your hand and cannula. Then you can use some tape to make the bottom water tight. Its incredibly annoying!
Being attached to a pump.
First I need to actually explain what a pump is. A pump is a device which takes part of the tube, which is having your solution put through into your cannula, and it controls the flow rate. It is a piece of machinery and due to this it has to be plugged into the mains most of the time due to its bad battery life. It is usually attached to the pole which is also holding your solution. But don’t worry it at least has wheels.
Since the pumps don’t have a very long battery life you have to always be plugged into the wall, which means if you wanna get up, you have to unplug, hit the mute button because the pump doesn’t like being under 100% charge before you can move more than 2 metres away from your bed side. So if you half wake up in the middle of the night needing a wee, then you try to get up and then get pulled back to the pump. And it hurts having a tiny tube, which is half inside of your hand, being yanked on. IT SUCKS!
The shower incident.
Once I finished my shower I tried to pull off the gloves over the cannula but it caught on one of the connections and the tube fell off the end and meant the cannula was left open. So I was left with an open vein whilst completely naked just out of the shower. So I start bleeding everywhere. Which is not ideal, as you can imagine. It’s just not what you need is it? You’re sick and you decide you want to have a shower to try and feel better, with their pretty crappy showers, and yours ends with you awkwardly holding a tiny towel to cover yourself whilst the nurses walk around trying to fix the open stream of your blood. Cannulas just kind of make everything a bit more annoying.
Taking them out is cool.
I like to do as much of the gory stuff myself when it comes to my care. It just feels like I have more control and feels really cool. Like I enjoy taking out my own cannulas because I have all of the control and it’s really interesting. The second picture is actually a picture of the first time I took out the cannula myself.