Image: February 2026 - Karen with her Central line

Hello Everyone

Karen has now been in Conquest hospital in East Sussex for 2 years and 1 month. 

On Tuesday the 3rd of February Karen’s TPN was stopped until her infection is better.

On Wednesday the 4th of February Karen had a Central Line (central venous catheter) inserted in theatre under GA. This goes into the side of the neck into a large blood vessel that leads to the heart. It is a short-term device (around a week) used for urgent IV access when it is difficult to get IV access by other means. There is a device in Karen’s neck with 5 lumens (narrow tubes). These are being used to give her IV fluids, antibiotics, anti-sickness and pain relief drugs and to take blood samples and blood cultures from. While Karen was in theatre her gastroenterology consultant changed her PEG tube. In recovery Karen had a portable chest x-ray to check that the central line was in the correct position and then Karen’s PICC line was removed from her arm. The tips of the old PEG tube and the PICC line were sent to the path lab for testing to find out if they were infected. Karen had very severe pain in her neck and very severe body pain in recovery and for some time after she was back in the ward and she was very distressed. It gradually became a bit more bearable when she was given more frequent pain relief in the ward, but she still had a lot of pain.

On Thursday the 5th Karen has had an urgent echocardiogram to check if her heart has been affected by the infection.

Several blood cultures had been taken in the last month to check for infection in the blood and they were negative. On Thursday the 5th a doctor told Karen & Heather that a blood culture that had been taken that week had shown that Karen has an infection in the blood. The doctor said that it was of unknown origin. The 2 antibiotics that Karen was already having IV were changed to 2 even stronger ones.

Since the procedure, Karen’s temperature has still been spiking at times and she is still more unwell than usual.

Thank you so much to everyone who has signed and shared the petition. Also, thank you very much to everyone who has chipped in to promote the petition. It is very generous of you and it makes a big difference. Thank you for your supportive comments. It is all much appreciated by us.

Please keep sharing this petition and telling people about Karen’s situation. 

Thank you to everyone for your support. 

Best wishes to you all.
Heather, Michael & Karen