Port Placement

Monday April, 7th

Jamie and I went to Frisbee Hospital in Rochester to get my port placed. Wentworth Douglas Hospital sends a lot of their patients there as they are inudated with patients and needing ports placed. I was a little skeptical as one of the nurses from WDH literally said over the phone “ohhhhh… youre going there”… and quickly said “don’t worry a lot of our patients get there ports there and it goes well”. HAH… I wasn’t worried until you made that comment! On our way there Jamie and I were dying… run down houses… one roof was 100% covered with green moss… lol yikkesss!

Boy were we all wrong!! My nurse was SO nice, attentive and kind. One of the male nurses was a Veteran and got my IV placed after ONE try!! Such a great experience. I forgot how intense the process was though… during pre-op they hooked me up to an EKG and blood pressure was running every 5 minutes or so. Doctor Boss (not sure I will forget that name lol) came in and went over the procedure. Basically a port is a small device that is placed under your skin on the right or left side of your chest. It provides easy access to a large vein to deliver chemo, blood draws and fluids which reduces the need for frequent needle sticks… YAY! I asked if it was possible to have my port incision on top of the scar I already have. You could tell that wouldn’t have been his preference but said it’s doable! Awesome… ONE scar! LET’S DO THIS DR. BOSS!

I was brought into the procedure room and they started going to town hooking me up to another EKG machine.. prepping the area with a very cold antiseptic cleanser. They put a bar over my head and had a drape over it to keep everything sterile. I had a small peak hole I could see out of! I was given Fentanyl and some heavy drugs that made me sleepy but I never fell asleep and could talk to the staff the entire teim. BOSS came in and gave me a few shots of local lidocaine (that was honestly the only part that was a bit painful). Everything else went smoothly!

Post-op was interesting!! I was SO DROWSY and out of it. We picked up the kids from my parents house and I basically just crashed on the couch while they ate dinner. Went home and was still so out of it! I didn’t like the feeling and it hurt way more than I remember. I took Ibuprofen which helped! By the next morning I was a little sore/groggy but totally fine!!

KPOW