LONG DAY OF PORTS

March 7, 2025

Yesterday was port Day. It was a long day, exhausting, painful, and not necessarily a simple process. I’m going to try to keep this short, because I am in a lot of pain.

My appointment was at eleven, but they wanted me to check in ten minutes before that. Rosie drove me, and we got there in plenty of time. Showed my ID and medical insurance, signed my life away, and a nurse came to show us to our hang out and wait area.

I think there were about six nurses getting me set up. First I had to change into a gown. Then a male nurse covered me in warm blankets. Yum! so nice. In a flash, I was hooked up to a heart monitor, a blood pressure machine, an oxygen monitor, blood was drawn, and IV pieces inserted and taped down. Every one of those six nurse asked me the same three questions, multiple times.

“what is your first and last name? What is your birth date? Why are you ?”

Rosie and I joked about me replying and adding, “what is your birth date and why are you here?” lol.

After that busy 20 minutes, it was time to hurry up and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. Fortunately, Rosie and I never run out of things to talk about. However, why on earth do they ask the patient to be there at a certain times, when the procedure won’t even begin for at least two hours, maybe more? I just wanted it to get done. Waiting just gave me time to get nervous. And I was starving and thirsty. The nurse who called me the day before told me nothing to eat or drink after midnight, and here it was about 12 hours, then 13 hours since then, even more since I’d actually eaten, and nothing was happening but me getting hungrier!

A little funny bit here. My heart monitor told us that my heart had skipped a beat. Well, that’s such a common theme in love songs or romance novels, and she and I began making up silly lyrics about hearts skipping beats. One example from me was

“My heart skipped a beat,

When the blood pressure machine began to squeeze.”

As an aside, I hate electronic blood pressure machines. They hurt my arms so much! Rosie says I should use the phrase about my heart skipping a beat, somewhere in the YA fantasy I’m writing. It’s turning out to have a lot of humor in it, so I think I will add that line somewhere.

At last, around 1PM, one of the procedure nurses, Priscilla, came in to talk to me and explain what was going to happen. The doctor was finishing a procedure, so it was still half an hour before they came to wheel my bed to the procedure room. One cool thing is that from the time you get into your assigned bed at the start of check in, that’s where you stay. They wheeled me to the procedure room, turned me on my side, put a board under me and whisked me to the procedure table. My bed waiting patiently for my return.

There were about five or six people, including the doctor, in the room. Priscilla would be responsible for giving me the drugs, under the doctor’s supervision. First she asked what kind of music I’d like. I asked for oldies, and they found an oldies channel on Pandora. That made me smile a lot. I noticed that the staff called the doctor by his first name, Robert, so I will refer to him that way. It tickles me, because I think of the Beatles son DOCTOR ROBERT. Doc Robert and his procedure assistant Gordon, checked out my chest area—now now, not that!—to see where would be the best place to insert the port. They described the process, telling me they would be stabbing me with needles that would sting and burn, to give me lidocaine and epi. They also checked out my neck, I guess for the blood vessel. The lidocaine didn’t burn at all. I’m tougher than that. But the guys touching my neck, squeezing it a little, nearly had me flying off the table. I’ve always reacted badly to that kind of thing, can’t even have blouses that button up against my neck.

Priscilla added the drugs to my IV at some point, because I began to relax. I asked her what she was giving me, fentanyl and something that sounds like “ver said”. I asked my Alexa how to spell those, but she didn’t answer me for the “ver said”. Lol. They had told me I’d probably stay awake, but I don’t remember anything much more, until they told me were were done, and they were moving back to my peacefully waiting bed.

Once back in my original spot, Rosie rejoined me, and we had to wait half an hour or so. The hospital had to make sure I was recovering okay, before they could let me go. There were some instructions about handling the dressing, when to change it, when it can come off, when I can shower, but I don’t remember a thing beyond the first dressing change should be after 48 hours. We have paperwork, and when Rosie comes tomorrow to help me with the dressing change, I’ll have her read it all to me. The dressing is miserable. there’s a big pad of stuff taped over the port area, and there is at least tape one a good part of the front of my neck. Due to limited range of motion, I can’t actually touch my neck, but moving my head, pulls on the tape on my neck. The port installation area hurts a lot, and the neck hurts, and it all also itches.

Well, by the time we left, I was so incredibly hungry, and we stopped at McDonald’s. We ordered a cheese burger for me, only catsup and mayo please, a double cheese burger for Rosie, one bag of fries, and a milk shake for me. However, when we got our bag of food, we also had an extra bag of fries, a box of four chicken nuggets. My burger only had catsup, and it also had onions and pickles. I ate my whole burger, two nuggets, a few fries and my entire milk shake! Would you say I was hungry? I was!

When we got home, I gave Doug a brief update, hugged Shani who had stayed home with Doug and his dog, and went to bed, where I stayed until five this morning.

I’m in quite a bit of pain, depending how I move my body or my shoulders, or my head. I’ve rested a lot today and will probably go back to bed in a bit after some food. Seems like I’m still hungry! I wish this dressing and tape could come off NOW! I was going to say, I don’t mean to whine, but damn it, I do mean to whine. There a pocket in my chest with a foreign object that is somehow connected to something in my neck, and will be sued to deliver what amounts to poison to my heart and then to the rest of my body. Yes, I’m whining. The port process and recovery was a lot more than I had expected. But tomorrow will come and likely I’ll feel better. Maybe.

This turned out a lot longer than I meant it to be! Sorry folks. Thanks for reading and for all the support.