On second thought, lets not use the veins, tis a silly thing. - 11/11/13

The veins get a work out with cancer so to save them from abuse that comes with blood draws, chemo, etc. we decided to have a port implanted in her chest.





From http://www.norcalvascular.com:

"An implantable port is a medical device that consists of two components. The first is a thin, soft, plastic tube called a catheter that is typically inserted (tunneled) under the skin of your chest and courses over the collarbone into a large neck vein. The catheter tubing connects to the second component called a reservoir that is implanted under the skin of the upper chest. The port reservoir will show as a small bump underneath your skin, which can be felt but is not visible on the outside of your body. To use the port, a medical professional will pass a special type of needle through the skin into the port reservoir allowing medicines to be given into the vein or blood to be taken from the vein."

So the description above pretty much does it but to add to it, it's a little smaller than a quarter and looks pretty darn cool. The doctors use as much or as little of tubing as is required, each person is different. Each time they use it, at the end they inject a blood thinner called Heparin to avoid clotting in the tube and in front of the port. 

We got to the hospital around 8 in the morning via Patti's dad (thank you) and pretty quickly we were called in, from there Patti and I went through the twists and turns of the hospital to get to our room while her dad stayed in the waiting room. After an hour or two of waiting, taking a few tests and watching HGTV in the room we finally met our doctor and filled out some paperwork. We finally coaxed Don into the recovery room and he got there right as Patti was being wheeled out. 

While we waited for Patti's surgery to be done the wonderful Alison stopped by and we chatted. About just over an hour after she left, Patti was wheeled back into the room smiling and joking and being Patti. There's about 2 1/2 inch scar on her chest where the port was put in and Patti says it just feels like it's there, no pain, nothing really although she does ache from the surgery. 

Now whenever they need to put in fluids or chemo or need to take several vials of blood they will use the port. If they only need a vial or two of blood or something minor they will still use her veins. We also found out that anesthesiologists don't use the port at all (our nurse rolled her eyes at this) and will use the veins as well.  Paulette was our main nurse and she is as sarcastic as me (while still very nice and informative) and had a great sense of humor so ba-da-da-da-da I'm lovin it! She'll have some pain later today and into tomorrow when the novacane wears off, but for most part it was a rather simple procedure

Tomorrow will be results and chemo scheduling.