I Wish I Could Unsee That

During my day trip to Sloan Kettering yesterday (and yes, I did decide to treat there - chemo starts next week) I visited with the kind nurses in radiology at the main hospital.  Their job?  To provide an informative demonstration on the surgical placement and benefits of using a port to deliver chemo treatment. A little nick in the neck, a small incision above the right breast and it's in.  They had a large display with prosthetic skin and a sample port that they used for reference. 

But wait, there's more! 

We have an opening this Friday and you really want to get in. 

Patients tell us they wish they had

the port placed before they started treatment. 

Was this a presentation for a medical device
or for a time share in Boca? 
 

I'm sold, ladies!  Where do I sign?

They don't knock you out completely for the procedure.  I don't like that.  I'm a fan of Propofol (or as Dad and I refer to it, "Michael Jackson juice").  At the risk of sounding like I have "a problem", Propofol is awesome!  My friends who are terrified of colonoscopies and endoscopies, let me reassure you - Propofol is the greatest nap ever.

Nope.  This will be done in the same manner as my biopsy.  They put you in a little twilight so you kind of know where you are but have little recollection the next day.  They use Lidocaine to deaden the nerves topically.  "Most patients sleep right through it". 

When I had my biopsy at another hospital, the nurses couldn't find a vein in my arm or top of my hands so they used the vein at the bottom of my thumb - that's OK to cringe, I certainly did. Hospitals really need a phlebotomist from Quest Diagnostics in these surgical suites; those experts can find a vein in any arm.  To continue - they used the Lidocaine as well.  My biopsy was a little deep and if I didn't know any better, I would have thought the needle started out on the surface of my skin but ended up in China.  "Ouch.  I felt that"

Back to the port.  The idea itself is fantastic.  A small plastic device is placed under your skin and into a vein so blood samples can be more easily drawn and chemo effectively delivered.  Unfortunately, showing a patient like me the actual device is never a good idea. It's the size of a quarter but by the time I got home, in my head, it was the size of a truck tire.

Here it is: 

Oh and I got a prescription for a "full cranial prosthesis".  That's insurance speak for "a wig". 

And in case you were wondering, I asked the doctors not to tell me if they put a stage and grade on this cancer.  I'm comfortable referring to this as "the recurrence".  Knowing isn't going to change the fact that my hope is in God for His will for my life.