When It Feels Like Christmas on Medical Supply Day

Every Wednesday is Supply Delivery Day. It’s like a Medical Supply Christmas that comes ones a week for those who love their lives permanently or temporarily attached to some kind of medical device. In my case, I have a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) so I can receive TPN (total parenteral nutrition) 12 hours a day due to gastroparesis.

At first, when all of those supplies showed up at my house along with all of the devices, it was daunting. I felt as though I was sitting in a sea of never-ending syringes and alcohol swabs and saline flushes… and I didn’t know how to use any of them. My mind and my heart felt overwhelmed by the boxes and bags of equipment splayed out around me. “When did my life become an episode of ‘ER?’” kept running through my mind.

But as the tears began to form in my eyes and my heart raced, something deep inside me told me I had to conquer this like I’ve conquered so much before it. And as the supplies organized and my set up became part of my routine, it has all become less discouraging and more a part of my life. And when supplies begin to run low, I find myself looking forward to Supply Delivery Day!

And it’s like Christmas or a birthday every week as you open up boxes and bags of supplies — mostly of things you were expecting (TPN, vitamins, alcohol wipes) and things you weren’t because you forgot about them (flushes, needles, syringes, stockinettes, batteries, etc.). And, as you rifle through the newly arrived supplies, you realize just how much it feels like Christmas in the middle of June.

Viewing these weekly deliveries as positive as opposed to added stressors to the Chronically Ill Life helps me manage this often intimidating, scary and exhausting aspect of being ill.