Yes Chrissie, if they can’t/won’t do a picc line, maybe they will look at the options of a drug reduction/change, there are other drugs they could use, but several chemos will do the same as epirubicin. Now I had it in 2001, it didn’t affect me that way, but they used to give us oral steroids we had to take for 2/3 days, do they do that with you?i mean that is an option if they decide to use it.
what you need to ask them clearly and to the point, is ‘how will you protect my arm/veins’ from this drug.
are you waiting for a central line, ddi you say? - if so then that will be really helpful as it will do a similar thing as a port of picc.
just keep making lists of things you want to know the answr to...take an advocate along with you.....not all general hospitals do put in pics. Some don’t do ports either...one problem is that you need specially trained nurses to use them once they are in situ and the training is high class....today’s chemo nurses need cutting edge top class skills to use these lines.
It it may be that the doctors don’t yet have the required training to put in a port. These are not simple...they need to be done by a very skilled doctor.
your last option, might be to either explore being referred to a hospital which would put in the port or picc...,then leaving your own hospital to make sure there are teams of nurses around who are trained to use it properly
love and hugs..Moijan💚🦋🦋
