12-10-2013 Sarah's Third Infusion

Sarah hasn't been feeling too great lately.  She has had a fever off and on, and her nose has been running and she has been coughing.  In speaking with the doctor today, we decided to hold off on antibiotics and see if she can fight this off on her own.  We may still end up on antibiotics later this week.

Today, we did Sarah's 3rd infusion.  It is the first one that I have done by myself without any help at all.  It went fine, and the emla cream really helps the needles not hurt going in.

There are a lot of pieces to doing this infusion.

This is the medicine itself.  It is made from human plasma, and has the antibodies to fight infections.

First, you hook the syringe

 

up to the spike

 

 

Then you push the spike into the first container of medicine.  You pull back on the syringe until you get all of it in the syringe.  Then you repeat with the 2nd vial.

Then you hook the flow control tubing (I believe this is the tubing that tells the pump how fast to infuse the medicine) up to the syringe.

Then you hook the infusion tubing up to the other tubing.

 

 

After that, you prime the tubing by slowly pushing down on the syringe and watching the medicine go through the tubing until it reaches just above the needle.  Then I insert the needles into her skin and hold in place with Tegaderm.  Then I put the syringe in the pump and turn it on. The infusion takes about an hour and a half.  Then we remove the needles, cover the infusion sites with gauze for leaking, and we are done.

 

I am hoping she will feel as good after this one as she did after the last!