Houston... We have a situation here

[taggart84]

I'm an LPN with a Homecare company that I love. I've been a nurse for 6 years and this is the first company where I feel belonging to. I do visits (vs shift) for recently hospital discharged or acute flare up adult patients. A lot of hips, knees, CHF, A-Fib and wounds.

I'm pretty good at the skills portion of my job and still have a lot to learn with the patient education part. I've been in dementia ltc and then 4 years home health psych. So education about CHF and the like are not my forte.

Okay. At 4pm today I walked into a patients house prepared for the visit. I had seen him yesterday so today would be similar. He had an infected wound which led to antibiotics through a PICC. Got everything set up while he took his sweet time drinking coffee while I waited. Finally got him in place. I flushed him, primed my line, and hung the bag. Then I did his intense and awesome wound. Drew my labs via VP, an LPN in my state can't draw through the PICC. Unhooked bag, flushed both lumens. All I had to do was change the dressing. I had my field set up and began removing his old. The tegaderm got tangled up with the bio patch. I used my scissors to give it a nick enough to tear my finger into the tegaderm and remove. Only as I was pulling away my pt "jumped" as he had been falling asleep. It was a split second event. I went on about my way. Almost done and I realized I had cut the PICC.

I didn't cut it in half, a hairline nick you had to search for. But enough.

What happened?

Well two hours, countless phone calls, an RN coming out, and arrangements to go to hospital tomorrow, later....it was over.

I haven't charted. I can't just yet. All tonight is about wine. And crime show reruns. And more wine.

Happy Nursing!

#CantWinEmAll

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

oh. crap.

The wine sounds like a good idea...after you chart. Tomorrow can't be any worse.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

Oh dear, a friend of mine accidentally did that to a Triple lumen port last week. We tied a knot in it. She was freaking out. Stuff happens. It sounds like you handled it just fine though. They can place a new one over a guidewire.

Enjoy the wine.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Well now you learned the lesson I learned (through experience when it happened to me) as a new grad- NEVER take scissors anywhere near a PICC.

[debarose]

But stuff happens...I always wanted to go the home health route thanks for giving me an overview on what to expect. Kuddos for handling this well.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

yes Kudos for being honest and taking appropriate action by reporting the accidental nick to this PICC line.

[caliotter3]

Reminds me of the time someone tried to accuse me of "nicking" something because a nick appeared and, of course, the nurse had to be responsible, not the patient or the patient's spouse, or whatever really happened. I would have thought that had I nicked anything, I would have been aware of what happened at the time. You can't win them all.