As care shifts from hospital to home, guarding against infection falls to families

Angela Cooper arrived home from work to discover her daughter’s temperature had spiked to 102 degrees — a sign that the teenager, who has cancer, had a potentially deadly bloodstream infection. As Cooper rushed her daughter to the hospital, her mind raced: Had she done something to cause the infection?

Cooper, who works at a Chevy dealership in Iowa, has no medical background. She is one of thousands of parents who perform a daunting medical task at home — caring for a child’s catheter, called a central line, that is inserted in the arm or torso to make it easier to draw blood or administer drugs.

Central lines, standard for children with cancer, lead directly to a large vein near the heart. They allow patients with cancer and other conditions to leave the hospital and receive antibiotics, liquid