Post-Port Recap and Chemo Class

The chemo class was just fine. Just a depressing hour of a nurse telling me how every part of my body is going to be doing something weird, hurting, falling out (hair/nails), or just overall vomiting. Turns out my chemotherapy is pretty damn intense, all five drugs they are using might be kicking my ass something tender. But I'll play bystander if it kicks the cancer ass! Just now starting to worry about how I am going to be up on campus. Looking into switching to some online classes which sucks but what can you do? I WILL graduate as planned. I don't care if I have to show up lookin' like the bloody bald exorcist if I can't find any online classes to switch to.

The port wasn't too terrible. Well, I'm not going to lie and say that it was fun but it was not nearly as bad as I built it up in my head to be. The fasting (ALL day long) wasn't fun. I almost ate grumpy cat again.

But I didn't eat him, he's alive and well. He started to resemble a taco for a brief period. So no biggie on the beginnings of the port- same old radiology department I had my needle biopsy and PET scan done. I'm starting to know nurses by name. Not sure how I feel about becoming a regular customer but at least the service was nice.

The technical name for what they did yesterday is a vascular access port implantation. Big words, big words. They will use this port to give me my chemo drugs so they don't have to run an IV all the time and destroy my veins. Basically, they cut me open in two spots, made a skin pocket (that's just nasty) and connected the tube of the port (see prior post for picture of said tube) to the jugular vein that pumps the medicine into my heart. Now I did not know all these lovely jugular vein and heart details until the nurse sat me down and told me every gruesome detail in the back room. Well, cue the freaking out at that point.

I'm not going to pretend I'm brave every step of the way. Because that's not reality. And if anyone else with a recent cancer diagnosis finds this blog I don't want them to feel like you have to always be brave. You don't. Some of this shit is scary. So be as fucking scared as you want. And demanding as you want to be.

And I found that very scary. Cue the high maintenance demands for the drugs to calm my freaking ass down. The veins in the crooks of my arms are starting to get a little wobbly so they had to put yesterday's IV bloodsucker into the wrist.

I was quite upset about the IV placement here. Like, irrationally so. Why the HELL did you put this thing by my wrist bone? That just gives me the heebie jeebies. Sometimes it's the small things we spazz out over in the bigger scheme of things.

My sister flew in from Colorado to spend a few days with us since the diagnosis which is just down right amazing because she is the biggest help ever to my mom and I. Adrian just adores her so she was able to pick up him from 4K and bring him in to visit me before the procedure. We're trying to make this experience less scary by making it a bit more real and not just a scary image in his imagination. So he got a tour of the hospital and got to meet the nice nurses. He's doing pretty good with things. I think seeing the hospital helped. He got to see mommy and know she was doing just fine and see that everyone was taking good care of her.

My son Adrian and I pre-surgery

The first words out of his mouth when he saw me, "MOM! Do you have your bubble gum?" Well of course I did. That gum goes everywhere now. He did very well, he came back to hug me, and then was skipping off to the gift shop with grandma. It was nice having my sister back there with me to ask the important questions. My questions tend to be really random and off the wall. Like, "This isn't your first rodeo right? You've done this before?" I think that's a valid question. Or, "What color is the blood/tumor/tissue/marrow/etc?"

Speaking of rodeos, my doctor (port placement extraordinaire) was smokin' hot. I felt like I was dropped into an episode of Grey's Anatomy. And apparently I talked, talked, talked, talked his ear off during surgery. I'm a talker under anesthesia. Anyone who knows me just the slightest bit probably isn't surprised by this. Apparently I gave him a nice long lecture about how this port made me a robot but not a Star Trek cyborg because I'm no Trekkie. And he said, "Like a droid?" Bonus points for Doctor Heart Throb. But seriously, I treated them all to a nice big ramble session about how strongly I feel about not being a Trekkie. 

So thumbs up for Dr. Bedroom Eyes and super awesome surgery drugs! Didn't feel much throughout the procedure except Dr. Smokin' Biceps shoving the thing in my chest but it wasn't necessarily unpleasant. And that's not just because he was a cutie. They used a giant flat screen ultra sound thing to help guide Dr. McHottie Pants on where to put my port. I asked for a picture (of course I did) and one of the lovely nurses brought it out to me afterwards.

Freaaaaaky! Can you see it floating in there? The little two heart shaped things on the left and then the tube going down by my spine? It's so gross and so awesome all at the same time.

Sure didn't feel awesome afterwards. Hurt like the flames of hell. But I suppose they were poking around in a very sensitive area. Incisions by the collar bone and above the booby zone aren't going to feel great. I still think this is all a giant hoax so these doctors can see my naughty bits.

Grumpy cat was not pleased. Woke up this morning in quite a bit of pain so my ambitious day of returning to school might be on hold again. And they don't even give you any good pain meds for this stuff! Probably figure they don't need a bunch of cancer pain pill addicts. But telling me to take some Aleve after you've been all up in my chest cavity definitely causes some raised eyebrows. Even for Dr. Hot Stuff.