Tag: Port

67. Further Assimilation

The body sends out a liquid response to healing, and at first, it is a large quantity, and so it is helped to the outside by a long flexible straw that goes into a four inch collection bubble pinned to the gown. What a fashion statement!

If I had the where with all, if only my body would have acted when my mind told it back then (damn paralysis), you would have a picture of my next stage assimilation into the Borg!   I am not really a Star Trek fan, but it’s the analogy of a lifetime.

The port is always in my chest, but it is rarely “accessed”.  Accessed means that there is a plug in the plug in.  A small tube is there, and blood can be drawn, or IV fluids linked to the line.  Before the surgery, the port was accessed, tube one.

I had IV’s, yep, not one, two.  Why?  Someone knows, but it is not me.  The port really should have done the full trick.  But I had an IV on my right arm in the bend.  They are always in the worst place.  Why the bend, where you can feel the needle with every motion?  I had an IV once that was mid arm, no pinching, no long term resentment from my hand.  Why not there?

Left hand, another IV.  Hand. Oh dear.  The hole is a scab about 3/16 of an inch in size.  My hand is not going to forget that one soon.  

Oxygen happened.  The tubes aren’t invasive, but they do come up to the nostrils and deliver that “wired in look”.

Then going lower, the first couple of days I didn’t need to get out of bed to use the toilet.  That is an incredible blessing.  Another tube, from my urethra to the box.

And a drain.  The main wound had a drain.  The body sends out a liquid response to healing, and at first, it is a large quantity, and so it is helped to the outside by a long flexible straw that goes into a four inch collection bubble pinned to the gown.  What a fashion statement!  When that came out, the nurse asked if I wanted to see.  There was at least a foot of tube that had been working inside.  Incredible.  And once out, the skin closed, and the reality of the work of the body went back into hiding. That is as much Borg as I ever want to be. Assimilated.  Done.

18. The Port

A minor surgery cut a two inch slit across my chest.  It is probably three or more inches down from the right edge of my neck.  They lifted the skin there.  The little tool is a solid plastic piece, nothing to break off (and my heart chambers are on the common side!). The plastic port is like a tiny, forever covered, hot tub.  Maybe not the best analogy. As swelling has come down, it literally looks like it sounds.  You can see that they lifted the skin and stuffed something under it that is an inch across and a half inch deep.  I’m not shy about it.  If you are near me, you can check it out, look at it, touch it.  I think it is really interesting, and I feel like I have begun assimilation into the Borg (for sci fi fans).

An IV goes in the hand or arm, and then can be accessed for a length of time, a limited length of time.  A port is a related entity, longer term.  I have no idea if there are different types or different placements.  When they told me to have a port installed, I just made the appointment, and rolled with it.

A minor surgery cut a two inch slit across my chest.  It is probably three or more inches down from the right edge of my neck.  They lifted the skin there.  The little tool is a solid plastic piece, nothing to break off (and my heart chambers are on the common side!). The plastic port is like a tiny, forever covered, hot tub.  Maybe not the best analogy. As swelling has come down, it literally looks like it sounds.  You can see that they lifted the skin and stuffed something under it that is an inch across and a half inch deep.  I’m not shy about it.  If you are near me, you can check it out, look at it, touch it.  I think it is really interesting, and I feel like I have begun assimilation into the Borg (for sci fi fans).

This hot tub has a permanent soft top.  When they access it, the needle goes straight in through the layer of skin, but there is a lot of area that they can choose so that the pin prick will never be in exactly the same space.  If you think about six months of treatment for the first round, that’s only 12 pin pricks.  It could easily be functional for round after round, for people that that idea applies to.

The port hooks up to a major artery, I think it’s an artery.  Anyway, a big body tube that carries stuff to my heart has been redirected to be the thing that takes chemo there.  The heart pumps the chemo out in a diffused way that is safer.  So there is one end of port that may be hooked to nothing.  Maybe they shut off the vein on that end.  Maybe I shouldn’t be explaining things I don’t care enough about to look up! 

There is a hole from the surgery that is visible on my neck.  That’s the one that hurts, oddly.  It is small.  Almost a month later, I can still feel pain there.  My mind wants to say that it is the quick change in direction, the chicane, that makes it annoying.  At first I could feel the pull of the tube when I turned my neck or lifted my head.  Maybe it is healing in.  Maybe I am learning to ignore it.

The port is, at about one month after installation, still annoying-ish, still causes pain, especially because seat belts go over the port and hit right at the neck wound.  It’s so minimal in the scheme of things that I file it in the mind category “interesting”…  maybe “exciting” if perception of the Borg is seen as joining the Universal All.  It’s definitely an entry point for new experiences, the place where chemo joins the body for the dance.