Air In Line

This may come across incredibly selfish, but I want to say - I HATE IV pumps, and in particular, the "Air in Line" error.

Used to be, an IV was a hanging bag, with gravity working against an adjustable clamp to set the flow rate. These days we have an IV pump, which regulates flow rate.




I truly believe this thing was developed and marketed by Satan himself. I've been going over it, looking for an address, expecting to see Hell (plus curious what the zip code is there...)

These things work almost flawlessly during the day. But come nightfall, things change. It may detect when the people in the room have drifted off to forced and uneasy sleep, and then it's on.

Every 30-45 minutes, throughout the night, and alarm begins to ring, showing a message of "air in line" on the screen. The alarm is loud enough to wake those in the room, but not loud enough to make it through the door and out to the nurses station where the nurses are sitting charting/chatting on night shift.

So, up I get, to go get the nurse. When she comes in, she pulls the line, taps it, puts it back and restarts the pump. All seems well then. She leaves, I lay back down, and off to sleep again.

Then, it repeats.

And repeats.

And repeats.

Every once in a while I instead hit the nurse call button, but inevitably the medical assistant is not at the desk, and the call goes unanswered. So, then I call the nurse's phone, and undoubtedly she'll be sterile in another room, so the call goes unanswered.

You can silence the alarm, for 60 seconds. Then it's back.

You can also ignore it. This is a bad idea. If ignored for 5 minutes, the volume jumps to a level that the patients next door begin to come out in the hall, thinking the building is in fire.

What's the worst part? Harper sleeps right through it. So, I get all the enjoyment to myself.

So, selfish post. In summary, I hate IV pumps.

Once I get back home, I'm sure I'll have nightmares about the words:

Air In Line