I've got a Port opposite my Starboard Side !

I spent most of the day at the hospital again today. Randy dropped me off at 7:00am for my first EKG Ultrasound heart test. Doctors will monitor my heart while they administer Chemotherapy and will use today’s test as a baseline. Then it was off to another surgical procedure. I’ve been thinking long and hard about which is worse: getting ready for surgery or the actual surgery itself. I think I’ve got a winner: it’s the surgery prep — the “Here’s a list of what you have to do. Oh, and nothing to eat or drink after midnight!”

I’ve lost count of the number of procedures and preps I’ve had to do in the 29 days since I first found the lump. Today’s surgery wasn’t scheduled until 11:30 a.m. Typically, surgeries require fasting 8 hours prior. But because the schedule was in flux — they might decide at the last minute to take me earlier in the day — midnight was my deadline for no food.

Not a biggie in the food department. But not to be able to take a drink of H2O? That was like some sort of twisted Chinese water torture. I caught myself in the bathroom this morning, looking longingly at the faucet, wondering if I could sneak just a tiny sip. Surely I could keep this dirty little secret. No one had to know.

After all, a little sip of water couldn’t possibly be the dividing line in a successful surgery. Could it? I felt like a recovering alcoholic, tempted almost beyond the brink.

In the end, I chose the high road. I closed the bathroom door and avoided the kitchen. No agua for me. This surgery was simply too important to risk compromising. And it paid off.

Everything went like clockwork. Some anti-nausea drugs added to my anesthetic cocktail did the trick, and I made it through recovery without incident. I happily sucked down ginger ale and chewed on soda crackers all the way home.

The port is in and there’s a two-inch incision just below my left shoulder. My surgeon even worked around the outline of one of my summer tank tops so that the port won’t show!

This is a picture of the very port I now have hidden beneath my skin, at the top of my left breast in order to receive my chemotherapy cocktail. It’s maybe 1/2 inch in diameter and the thickness of three nickels. This is how it works: the tube connects it to my heart, by way of a big vein in my chest. It’s part of me now. I wished that the purple were glow-in-the-dark purple, and that is showed through my skin in the dark. That would be cool.

If I didn’t have this port, they’d have to put the cocktail straight into my arm. Getting chemo in the arm is the Dirty Harry, “Go ahead, make my day,” psychopathic way to get chemotherapy, from what I hear. The nurses cringe when they talk about it, as if they don’t like giving it like that anymore than people like getting it like that. Something about blood clots, burned skin, melted veins…let’s not talk about it…

I suppose I’m grateful, then, for this funny looking thing sticking out of my chest. It looks pretty stupid, though. They tell me I’ll have to keep it in for quite awhile after chemo is all over, Or until my new twins are fitted.

Randy had me home by 2:00....and back to the routine.