I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but I had a PICC line and can tell you my experience. I had to come to the hospital for a scheduled appt. - mine was in a room in the ER with a special PICC line nurse. I was there maybe 2 hours from arrival to departure, but the actual procedure took only a small amount of that time. He used some kind of hand-held scanner to find the veins in my left arm and marked some areas with marker. I had a shot of Novicaine (hardly felt that) and then he inserted the line on the inside of my arm, a few inches above the elbow. It took a few minutes, but I couldn't feel a thing. He used the scanner again to be sure it was in the right place, then taped the line to my arm. I had to go for an X-Ray to be sure the line wasn't too close to my heart - the hardest part, as I had to walk down to X-Ray! It was fine, so he taped it down more securely and sent me home. Before the procedure, another nurse talked me through everything I'd have to do at home with my line. I was completely overwhelmed by this and kept telling her so, but she must have had to do it anyhow. Luckily, my home health nurse was much more understanding and walked me through things step by step, day by day until I could handle it all. My arm was very sore for several days, and so were my neck and left shoulder (from the line being run through?). Once that soreness eased, though, I really couldn't feel the line at all. I ran IV fluids at night every other day, and had to inject Heparin in it twice a day to keep the line from clotting. The nurse came once a week to change the dressings - this hurt a bit because she had to peel all the adhesive bandages off my skin, and then use a disenfectant to wash the PICC site. My line clotted off twice - the first time the nurse came and was able to clear it, and the second time she couldn't. She said I'd have to go to the ER and they could hopefully clear it; I was improving by then, though, and had already gotten my doctor's permission that morning to remove the line if the nurse couldn't clear it, so she took it out, which didn't hurt at all. I have a little pink scar on my arm now - a permanent reminder of HG, I guess!