Ok, well, I did not read all the other posts yet, so I might be telling you something that contradicts everyone else, but I just had a similar conversation with one of Nathans nurses that has been a nurse for a very long time and whom I trust completely.
She told us that she use to go to camps with cancer kids and she ALWAYS let them go into the pool with their pic lines. She said that her recommendations would be to put a large tegaderm over it. Then when they were done swimming, go home and remove the tegaderm, and re-clean it and re-seal it with fresh everything, basically clean it as if you were changing it normally.
Do you clean and change the site yourself every 3-5 days now? If so, I would let him go swimming and then clean it and replace the padding and tegaderms really good. I would also replace the buff cap, you know the thingy you put the needle into when you hook him up.
I also know a respiratory thearpist that has contributed a lot to CF and new thearapies for them. He has a pool at his house and is friends with a couple of the kids that come over to his house to play with his kids and go swimming. He lets them go with their pics, with permission from their parents of course, and then they just clean the sites and replace all the stuff and off they go.
The kids with diabetes and CF related diabetes and have insulin pumps go swimming too. They too just cover those sites with extra tegaderm and then remove the extra tegaderm and clean the area after they are done swimming. They do have a 2 hour a day maximum swim time allowed at one time, meaning they can go 2 x's a day for up to 2hrs.
If you use an IV prep before putting the orginal tegaderm on and then the extra one for some added protection, it helps it, the tegaderm, to stick a little better for a little longer than without it.
Nathan has been swimming with his new insulin pump 4 or 5 times already, and all has gone well. I would have not even considered it for swimming with a picc until I talked to his CF nurse. Personally, I would probably double tegaderm it and then wrap it with water proof tape and then see how it went. Perhaps I would tell him up front that when things started coming loose from the water, we would have to go for the day and let him know that you are not sure how long that would be, could be 15 minutes or it could be an hour or two, or set a time limit of we can only go for 45 minutes a day with the picc.
This is one of those gray areas that we each have to decide for ourselves what to do. I do believe my friend that has 2 girls with CF allows them to go to pools that she knows are being cleaned and tested regularly when they have their piccs in.
Hope this helps,
