Caregiver: The Groshong Catheter

The photo is stark. Here's the story. Corinne has always had a problem with needles: particularly, with the process of puncturing veins to draw blood or to start an IV. With chemo set to begin, it was clear that there was going to be lots of vein puncturing. The oncologist told us that the chemotherapy was especially corrosive to veins and could create its own problems. So, Corinne was offered three alternatives, all of them surgical. She could have a "port" installed under the skin below her collarbone; needles would be stuck through the skin into the metal port, which is attached to a vein that goes directly into the heart. (This seemed to defeat Corinne's goal of minimizing needle sticks.) Or she could have a PIC line put in her arm, permanently tapped into a vein, so needle sticks would always go into a plastic plug, not the skin. Since the PIC line threatened to interfere with Corinne's active life, she chose the Groshong Catheter, which was surgically implanted in a large vein in her neck and extends out through her chest. An oncology nurse suggested the sunglasses string around her neck to manage the dangling tubes.