20. Hard to PORT!

Monday 9th - PORT (Port-a-cath) instalment. My friend Sue picked me up around 8.15am and dropped me off at the hospital. I found the medical imaging department and checked in. Pretty quiet waiting room. I had been fasting since midnight, no food or drink. I wasn't really hungry but I was thirty. Feelings of my lumpectomy start to flood (bad word choice!) in about how thirsty I was waiting for that surgery. I was hoping they would be on time today. The news was on, they were reporting on the terrible floods happening in the north of Western Australia and western NSW. Lots of water on screen. Not helping!! Next segment, a surfer has been missing for 4 days in Victoria and they are searching for him. More water, waves etc. Really?!?

Nurse Maree came and got me around 9.30am and took me to a comfy chair. She asked me questions about what I was getting done, then she showed me what the PORT looks like. It's dark purple! Dark purple is my favourite colour. It's called a 'BARD power port". Does that mean it is musical? How funny if every time you used it, it made a little tune. It is a bit smaller than the size of a 20c piece (sort of like a quarter for those in the USA) but a triangular shape with rounded corners. The top of it has a silicone cover and there are 3 little bumps along the top edge which is how the nurses know where to attach the needle. There is a tube that come out of the bottom side, probably about 2mm in diameter. The one she shows me isn't the one that I will get, that one will be all sterile of course. We had a bit of a laugh that my drain hole was finally closed just in time for me to get sliced open again!!!

She puts a cannula in my left hand. We are chatting, we get onto the topic of scars. She was saying that I'll have a little scar up near my throat above my collarbone and another one about 10cm below which will be as big as the PORT is. I said I didn't mind scars, I have a lot of them. She notices the big long one on my left thumb and also one underneath my left wrist. She also checked out the big one under my right arm. "Scars won't be an issue for you I guess". Nope! We keep chatting, she has 5 daughters (I'm number 2 of 5 girls) and her second oldest is like me, weird injuries, crazy aunt, lots of scars. She tells me to strip off the top part pf my clothes and put on the hospital gown, open at the back. This one sort of almost fit - just kidding! I didn't tie it up behind my neck, the Dr would just be taking my left arm out of it for the procedure anyway. Maree attaches some wires to me, one behind each shoulder and one on my left side. Dr Peter Childs came in and introduced himself and gave me a run down of the procedure. He asked if I had any questions and I told him that I had gone onto YouTube to see if there was a video (there was) and what he just described was at they did so I had a good idea of what to expect. He said he needed to put the PORT on the left side, my right side needs to be avoided surgically due to my lymph node removal.

I head into the x-ray room and lie on a SKINNY bed type thing. A small square rubber type pillow under my head. Maree puts some small perspex screen type things under me on each side so that my arms don't fall off the bed. I don't think it could be called a bed, a plank maybe. I ask for a pillow under my knees, I still don't like lying flat on my back quite yet. Still uncomfortable. Maree puts a blood pressure cuff on my left arm (127/78) and an oxygen saturation clip on my right pointer finger. Nurse Kim comes over, introduces herself, asks me who I am, date of birth and what I'm in for. Maree comes back, exposes the left boob and then slathers me from neck to boob, middle of chest to armpit with the cold pink stuff to make sure my skin is sterile. Dr Childs came back in, someone pushed something into my cannula, I can feel the cold travel along the vein up to my wrist. I wasn't going under a general anaesthetic, just mild sedation. Maree was sitting down behind my head. I was covered from head to toe in some operating cover made of blue fabric, which had a hole where the procedure was going to happen. The nurses do a count, 15 of something, 17 of something else.

Dr Childs told me "You'll feel a few sharp pricks" for the local anaesthetic. I've had a few needles in my life so I now what they feel like, not pleasant but not really painful. He starts up above my collar bone near my throat and sticks me about 6-8 times. Then he does a few more heading down towards my left boob. He then sticks a bigger needle with a wire in it and uses an ultrasound to make sure he has located the vein that goes into my heart. Then he puts something else over the wire and the wire comes out. I heard a high pitched whizzzzz in my left ear when he pulled the wire out. I could feel tugging and pressure and pulling but no pain. Next the does some more local anaesthetic closer to my boob. He is going to do a cut where the PORT will go. Some more tugging and pulling etc and then I could feel some pain. Dr Childs give me some more local anaesthetic and says I might metabolise it a bit quicker than most people. He tells me to let him know if I feel anything again. He can be sure I will tell him.

My left shoulder is starting to ache a bit as it's in a bit of a weird position and my head is turned hard to the right. The BP cuff takes readings every now and again. Maree tells Dr Childs at one point that I'm a bit 'tachy' so he says "Teagan, can you give her another 5 (or was it 50?)". I feel something cold get pushed through my cannula. I know that from the cut where the PORT will be the cable needs to go up to the cut near my neck. On the YouTube video there is a long metal skewer with a cable on the end that is pushed under the skin so that cable can then be pushed down the other guide wire to the heart. Maybe that is where my heart rate started to go up. I don't remember everything so the sedation may have made me drift in and out. A few times Maree checks in with me. There is a perspex "window" she can look through to see my face as my head is covered up with the fabric. I tell her my left shoulder is starting to ache and she says Dr is almost done. A few stitches, I felt the one up near my collar bone. Dr Childs says that he could've given me more local but the stitch and the needle for that would feel pretty much the same. I agree with him on that one.

He's done, the nurses count off, 15 gauze, 17 instruments. Dressings get put on me (I hope I don't react to these ones like the drain ones). They are water proof which is nice! The fabric is taken off me, the gown is pulled back up, I move onto a bed and get wheeled into a recovery section. I get given a drink of water. Hallelujah! Kim says it'll probably be 1-2 hours, they check my temperature, BP cuff goes off every 15 mins, they check my O2 sats. One the third BP round it kept on just inflating. That bloody hurt!. Kim took it off and unplugged, replugged, put it back on and it did the same thing. She changed machine and it's fine. She puts a defective tag on the machine that wasn't working. She checks with Dr Childs who says I can leave at 1pm. I call Ange to let her know as she is picking me up.

Just before 1pm Kim takes my cannula out of my left hand, goes through some paperwork about the PORT, what to do if it gets hot, hurts too much, starts to bleed, I get a fever etc. See my GP or come to emergency. I have a grey wristband that says "BARD power port" on it. She says to wear it all the time and there is also a card with a barcode and my hospital details to carry in my wallet. It lets other health professionals know I have a PORT. I get dressed - slightly awkward, the dressings or perhaps the big of swelling make it hard to move my left arm. I had a giggle. Great, both arms have issues at the moment!

Kim walks to the front entrance and Ange is there to pick me up in a couple of mins. Mither is with her. At least it isn't pouring and blowing a gale today. The seat belt unfortunately will go right over where the PORT incisions are so I hold it in my left hand. I'm hungry by now and have some lunch when I get home.