Port Placement

I keep thinking that we will get some positive news at some point, but the bad news keeps coming. After three surgeries we still do not have clear margins. A mastectomy seems to be in my future after all. I could have chosen a mastectomy at any point in this hellish process, but I just wanted to do the least invasive thing at every point along the way.

Regardless, I start chemotherapy tomorrow. Yesterday I had a port placed in my chest, just below my collar bone. I was given the option of having a local or general anesthetic for the procedure. I chose a local. This required me to lie under a sterile drape while a guy cut open my chest and implanted a port under my skin, with a catheter threaded down into a vein. This allows the chemotherapy drugs to be spread throughout the body quickly and efficiently, without having to start an i.v. for every treatment. I have to say that it was a little unsettling. I didn't feel any pain after being poked with a needle injecting the local anesthetic, but I could feel the pulling and prodding as he implanted the thing. I kept trying to recite the Serenity Prayer while looking out the small hole they left me under the drape, but the words got jumbled up as I lay there crying, thinking about the toxic chemicals that would be pumped into me through the damned device. The whole procedure took about an hour. This picture is the actual device in my chest. Looks kind of like a spearheaded tapeworm snaking it's way through me. When I am finished with treatment the device will be removed. I may get a tattoo that says "Fuck Cancer" in very lovely calligraphy to cover the scar.

I foolishly planned on going to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's after we were done at the hospital. I wanted to stock up on some easy vegan foods for the days when I feel like crap. I did not anticipate how discombobulated I would be after the procedure. We did go to Whole Foods and pick up a few things, but skipped Trader Joe's and came home. I took a nap, ate some dinner and laid on the couch for the rest of the evening. This thing hurts more than any of my surgeries did. I took acetaminophen a couple of times, and finally this morning took some of the vicodin that I was prescribed after my first surgery. It helped a little but I still feel like I got hit in the chest with a baseball bat.

I am not looking forward to tomorrow. I feel like I am on a runaway train which might derail at any moment. I want to jump off as we go around a curve, but that will surely end badly as well.