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Today was a long day, I had my port-a-catheter implanted on my right hand side, underneath my collarbone. It was a little surreal, especially in the procedure room, it was larger than I had thought, the wording threw me off, procedure room for me meant a smallish room, not a large room filled with so many huge machines and computers screens, it made it seem even more serious.
As usual, the nurses were all wonderful and nurturing, I was in excellent hands and they made the wait-time less stressful. There had been a miscommunication between the secretary and myself as to the fasting part, I wasn’t given any instructions to fast so I didn’t, oops. However all was not lost, I was able to be accommodated later on in the afternoon and thankfully everything went very well. I just had to hang out and wait for my turn, my nurses took care to keep me entertained. Lol
The procedure itself was fairly straight forward, something about threading or tunneling through the jungular vein, by the way I have a nice fat jungular, and then feeding it into the port inserted under my skin. In order to do this, my doctor did an ultrasound and then took X-rays, it was very detailed, to make sure that everything was laid out perfectly.
So now I am back home, I am ready for chemotherapy. When I was wheeled out of the hospital by my nurse, such a kind man, he helped me in the car and wished me the best of luck with my treatments, when my car door closed, I felt overwhelmed with emotion and I started to cry. I think I broke down a little because this made it all seem so much more real. I cried very quietly and briefly, my husband wasn’t aware, I was able to wipe away my tears and felt better because they had made their way out of my system.
I promised everyone at the hospital that I would not twiddle with the port or pick at the skin glue, it’s going to be so hard not to give in to my worst inclinations. I am a horrid scab picker and scratcher, it is such a failing on my part. I am going to work very hard to keep my promise, it is going to be torture, I’m sure.
laurieanichols 