Port Report

I had my port put in on Monday. I was terrified. This was my first surgery. Dave kept telling me that I wouldn't remember it, so I was utterly heartbroken when the doctor came in and told me that I would be getting conscious sedation with local anesthesia, which is NOT the same as twilight sedation where they make you so loopy you can't remember what happened.

It's not like I haven't been through this before. After all, I had a biopsy under local anesthesia, and I had to work really hard to avert my eyes from the doctor and all the techs in the small room and what on earth are they doing with that turkey baster? Eyes left: turkey baster. Eyes right: ultrasound screen showing turkey baster inside my boob. I couldn't win.

Still, the biopsy was different. I didn't have time to get worried about it. In fact, I was more worried about not knowing the results of the biopsy than actually having it done. The port implant was different. Intellectually, I knew it was necessary and that I would be grateful to have the damn thing in there, but emotionally, I wasn't so sure.

As the nurse walked me into the procedure room and got me situated on the table, I had visions of that movie Awake, which I haven't seen, but can vividly imagine. That's the one where the guy wakes up in the middle of surgery and can feel everything, but can't say anything. I thought, "I'm way too conscious for this."

They hooked me up to a blood pressure cuff and some goopy stuff like in The Matrix and some electrodes and a heart monitor. I could hear my heart beating on a machine across the room. One of the nurses cleaned the right side of my chest and neck with some runny stuff that, I found out later, painted me orange. Mercifully, another nurse wrapped my entire body, including my face, with blankets and plastic sheeting. I thought I might not be able to breathe and briefly considered having a panic attack, but I was fine. From within my warm cocoon, I heard someone say, "Okay, honey, I'm going to give you some medicine that may make you feel a little sleepy."

Aah, finally. The good stuff. From that point forward, I really didn't care. I want to emphasize that. I really. didn't. care. That concept is utterly foreign to me. I always care, usually more than I should. I didn't care when the doctor jabbed me with lidocaine (which did sting, by the way), or when I felt him pushing the catheter through my jugular vein and into my heart. I didn't care when he was digging around in my chest, making a pocket for the port. I didn't even care when he was sewing me up. I didn't care that I didn't care. Now I care. Now it's creeping me the hell out, but back then I was right as rain.

So the thing is, people told me this was going to hurt like a bitch. And when I say people, I'm talking about my friend Brian, who is also a cancer patient, plus a couple of breast cancer boards where people said "My port still hurts after two weeks! Is this normal?" But it really hardly hurt at all. The dressing, which was creeping up my neck and pulling on my skin, was worse than the pain at the incision site. So there's that.

This Friday, oncologist, then chemo hopefully starts next week.