Preparing for Treatment: Getting the Port

What is a port and why do you get it?

Ports are implants that sit under your skin and they feed into a major vein to deliver medication. These are used frequently in patients requiring chemotherapy because the infusions can be rough on your veins and you get numerous infusions over an extended period of time. Also, when you get chemo, you are generally also having to get other IV medications and need to have blood drawn. The port makes it easier on the medical staff and the patient instead of getting poked and prodded multiple times every infusion and having to have IVs put in your arm/hand every single time. The port seemed to be recommended by most people.

They make an incision on my chest to insert the main port hub, which is where they will hook me up for the infusions. It sits just under the skin, so I will get poked through the skin to get the chemo. The surgeon also makes a little incision on my neck to insert the tube that travels up from the hub into my jugular and down into the vein. Then she seals it all up with some dissolvable sutures and Dermabond (skin adhesive). Interestingly, they always say the Dermabond will flake off on its own, but I find that it would probably stay attached to me forever unless someone peels it off!

My port install

Today I had my port installed. As with all of my previous surgeries, I couldn’t eat or drink after midnight, so I was very hungry! But I’m usually hungry, so that’s not new. Luckily, I had to be at the hospital by 9:30 am, so I didn’t need to spend a ton of time wishing I could drink something and watching other people eat food.

For some reason, I was more nervous for this surgery than my other ones. It’s possible the nerves from my previous surgeries weren’t as fresh in my mind. I knew the port would sit in my upper chest and that I’d see the little tube that goes from the port up to my jugular vein and down to my heart. Obviously, you don’t see it in my heart, but you see the tube go up my chest, over my clavicle bone and into my neck vein. Lovely. All of those details seemed so invasive to me. Before they were just cutting peripheral chunks out of my body, now they are probing deeper and near my heart! Everyone was saying, “Oh, an interventional radiologist could do it” like that meant something to me or it was comparable to saying a child could do it. My surgeon reassured me that she’s done many of these and only encountered major issues once in the last 10 years. Also, my blood pressure was 94/61, so I must not have been too nervous!

The surgery itself was easy and I don’t even have that much pain from it. My nurse was super chatty when I was in Phase I recovery. I went back for my surgery at 11:22 am and I woke up in recovery at 1:10 pm. I was feeling really good and awake by 1:30 pm and I had to pee so badly! I wanted to get out of recovery so that I could go pee, but my nurse wanted to chat about everything. She was asking me what I did for work and asking me what I thought about the Russia/Ukraine situation. She told me about all of her grandchildren and then I watched as she cleaned all of the equipment. All I could think was probably even the Russians would have let me pee! She was a very nice nurse and got me some crackers and ginger ale. She even gave me some lip balm as a hospital “gift.” After she took care of what felt like everything she could possibly do, she found someone to take me down to Phase II recovery. When that nice lady came, she started to clean all of the equipment, too! I told her, “I promise you, the other nurse cleaned everything – the wires, the blood pressure cuff and the table. I really have to pee, can we go?” Luckily, she had compassion for my urgency and took me downstairs to Phase II recovery where I was reunited with Sean and, most importantly, was able to use the bathroom!

Checking out the new hardware

Of course, I was anxious to see what the new port looked like. My surgeon had been very liberal with the use of her surgical pen, trying to find the best place for the port that would avoid any bra straps and be less visible when my clothes were on. When you look at the picture, you can see all the purply, blue writing and you can see the tube traveling up my neck.

I didn’t realize how much I use my neck to stabilize my head until today. The pain is not bad, but it feels sore in a way that’s similar to waking up like I slept funny on my neck. I can also feel the tube when I swallow, turn my neck, yawn, take a deep breath, go over a big bump in the car, yell at the dog, etc. After a few days, the soreness and any of the sensitivity around the tube will go away and I won’t really notice it as much anymore. But right now it feels funky and very noticeable. Fingers crossed I grow accustomed to it and notice it less!