Port Installation

TRIGGER WARNING:

FOR THOSE OF WEAK OF HEART DO NOT READ THIS ARTICLE. MENTIONS OF BLOOD

January 2nd I had gotten my port for Chemo therapy installed. Boy, was it an interesting procedure. I have never been so let down in my entire life when it came to any other procedure.

It’s 6am, cold as hell and still pretty dark outside (thanks daylight savings!). Bubba (my best friend of 20 years and my sister’s fiancé) and I head up to University of Tennessee Hospital. I instructed on where to go and how to get here. However, at that point it had been over a month and I couldn’t remember where to go. So I called the information desk as we pulled in and asked. They told me that I was looking for the D building. Which didn’t sound right. So we entered into the main hospital and found the registration desks eventually. We waited three minutes before being called up. I get my bracelet and off to radiology to get the port implanted.

We got signed in with radiology and a few moments later get called back. I quickly get changed into a johnny and waited for the doctors next instruction. Now keep in mind a month earlier they had told me that they were going to sedate me and I wouldn’t feel a thing. Let this be a precursor. So the doctors and nurse come in and do their thing. They asked if I had been sick in the last twenty-four hours and I had said yes due to anxiety. WELP. Let me tell you. They certainly pumped me with enough drugs that should have put me to sleep… But it didn’t. They wheel me back into a mini operating room and they start prepping me. My eyes wide open, they decided to cover my right side of my face from seeing what they were doing. But for five minutes they stopped what they were doing and I heard:

”Oh… I pulled this patient back to early… There was one before her.”

Are you kidding me?! They almost put the wrong port in because nobody fucking confirmed who I was! By this point it was already to late and they started the procedure. I felt everything. I felt them cutting into me, blood trickling down my neck. I have no unearthly no idea what they were doing when it felt like they were punching my chest. It was probably to get the port placed. When they were “punching” me, I said “What the fuck was that for?!”

The person who was doing the procedure then told the SAME NURSE who had brought me back instead of the other one to “further sedate me”. Did it work? Still a no. Once they were done they wheeled me back to the little pre-op waiting room. Bubba came back and checked in on me before letting me get dressed to be discharged. I was glad that it was over however, my right side of my chest hurt so bad. I really couldn’t move my neck either.

When we left, I made Bubba go to a donut shop so I could get everyone breakfast because the next four to six months are going to be a nightmare and I wanted to give thanks for dealing with my sorry ass. Once we got home, I had my donut and went to my married shed where I slept until 6pm. I had slept the whole day away. I wasn’t happy about that so I got up and went into the house to spend the rest of the evening with the family. By the time I got tired again it was midnight and all of a sudden, the drugs from earlier came back with vengence and I threw up everything I had after my procedure which wasn’t fair. My sister had made one of my favorite dishes, homemade chicken alfredo. And I threw it up. I was shaking and every time I moved I threw up even more.

Needless to say, I’m not impressed. Do I recommend the port? At this current moment, absolutely not. I would rate it a -10/10. I will be bringing this up to my doctor when I see him before chemo starts on Tuesday. I wasn’t suppose to feel anything, I felt everything and then got super sick later. Not cool man. Not cool.

Where they placed the port, they cut along the lines of my tattoo (Legend of Zelda one however it looks so crappy that I’m to embarrassed to show the areas because of how crappy the tattoo is) so that was super nice of them. Other then that, to hell with port installations and the horse they rode in on.