The bad news is that my port is acting up again. A port is a plastic device placed under your collar bone that they can stick to inject IV meds instead of using your arm. This is what the device looks like;
The round plastic dome is where the needle is inserted for meds/blood draw. The end of the tube is placed in a vein. I had mine put in when they gave me my mastectomy surgery. So when I go in to the onc's office (which you know is quite often) they stick my port to draw blood and give me chemo. First they "flush it out" with saline to clear any clots. Then they draw blood. Afteward they put a drug in there called "hepenefrin" (at least that's what it sounds like) to keep it clot free or something, I dunno. They're not sticking me three times - they stick me once and this needle with a tube hangs there. Then they simply put different attachements on the end of the needle's tube to do these things.
Regardless, when you go in twice a week, they end up sticking this thing quite often. The doc gave me a script for a numbing cream which I apply an hour prior to going. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Who knows. Anyway at first the port wouldn't draw blood. They could get stuff into the vein, but not out of the vein. It wasn't working correctly. Then after visit 10 or so, it started giving blood. Yay!! Here's what my port looks like from the outside;
The scar is where they inserted the device during surgery. The holes are where they've stuck the needle in the plastic dome underneath the skin. Isn't that cool? Trust me, it beats the heck out of having your arm stuck over and over. Especially if it works. However mine is giving them problems again. They said the tube may be resting against something that's blocking the blood flow so once again the blood draws wouldn't work no matter how many times they moved the needle around. So they had to go through my arm three times today. Once for blood draw and another two times to find an adequate blood draw for my chemo meds. If they can't see blood coming out, then they can't inject the AC 'cause they're not sure it's going into the vein. So here's what my arm looks like today:
LOL I mean c'mon. You've gotta laugh, right? The bruises are caused when they move the needle around inside the skin in order to find the vein. Some of you noticed that brown one on the lower right a few weeks ago when it was really large and black. I got a lot of "WHAT'S THAT FROM!?" The one on the upper left is from last week. The blue ones are from today. Okay anyway, it's not a pity party - I just thought it was interesting. I've learned a lot about drawing blood and the needles and how it all works. It's quite interesting. Although I could NEVER do it myself. I'd faint dead away I think! Although I do watch 'em put 'em in there so I know when the stick is coming. Ouch. But it's over quickly. Unless they have to move the needle all over the place. *sigh* Okay yeah, feel sorry for me. Go ahead.
So now I have to have my port looked at to see what the problem is. This worries me. I'm not sure how exactly they do that and I'm terrified they're going to open the scar and start moving stuff around and if they do I'm going to FREAK OUT. I'm definately going to ask for some HEAVY HEAVY DRUGS before they go fishing around in there if that's what they do. I hear ports often have scar tissue that grows around them and they can be very painful to remove.
So yeah. That's the bad news.
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