October the 18th I finally got my port put in. I can now start chemotherapy! WOOHOO! Let’s get to killing some cancer and losing some hair! Anyways I had to be there at 6am. Liliana is still asleep at that time so Renee had to stay with her. My mother-in-law was able to drop me off. So at 5:30am we got in the car and started south. I had been having a fever and sweats for the past few days this coupled with it being still dark out I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of having a medical device inserted in my body. When we got there I was nice a sweaty but upon getting out of the car I felt the nice marine layer that I miss so much here in Escondido, it cooled me down real well.
Now I will draw an analogy here so you can get a picture of what it may have looked like to see me walking to the front desk. There are many different types of zombies but they generally fall into two basic categories; the slow “Night of the Living Dead” zombies or fast “28 Days Later” zombies. The slow zombie seems to not be in control of its actions, lumbering around guided by no real motivation save it is eat that person at the end of the hallway, but take your sweet time getting over there. Whereas the fast zombie, when he notices you, will break its neck looking at you so fast at the same time as he gets into a slight squat coiling its muscles to spring into an all out sprint straight for you, while maintaining a manic eye contact the whole time. They both come individual or in hordes. Ya I felt like crap, so for me I was more the “Morning of the Living Dead” zombie, taking my sweet time to get to the front desk down the hallway.
After I checked I sat down on a couch and just waited. A few more people came in also looking like it was six in the morning and they too were having medical procedures done. A lady came down and started calling off names and had every one get up and follow her. We looked like a horde of zombies, “Braiiiiins.” All I wanted to do was get to the bed they were going to give me and just fall asleep. As soon as I got to the floor and room where they would prepare me for my surgery I was hit by a wall of ice and wind. I think they keep it an even temp of freeze my face off. They wanted me to change into a gown in this oh so cold place. How in the world was I going to do this without shaking to death or worse yet what if I shake so violently from the cold I lose by balance and fall right through the curtain and into the hallway… naked? As a precaution I changed my clothes far enough back from the curtain as possibly. After I got established it turned out I got a blanket that had been sitting in a heater or something, awesome. Blood was taken, questions were asked, and my temp was taken at 100.2, the surgery was going to happen. There was some between time that I was left to wait a bit. This was time was spent with me trying to find a television channel on their little extendable arm TVs that would drown out the woman next to me that would not stop asking questions. I finally settled on the hospital’s own San Diego traffic report channel. It had some jazzy elevator music as it background to boring green and red flashing lights on a map of San Diego’s freeways. I was able to turn it up and pull it right next to my head. Oh ya and someone came in and shaved half my chest for me.
Well it was time to get started. They rolled me down to a room where I was to be put on a bed and have the port put in, I met all the people who were going to be involved and felt pretty good about it. They put one of those blue sheets on me that have a hole in it exposing only the area that is to be cut open. It covered my face too. They put up a poll next to my head and put the sheet that was covering my face on it, thus making me a little tent for my head. For this surgery I remember a little more than when I had my bone marrow biopsy. I remember a lot of tugging, pulling and pinching. The pinching was from the doctor sewing me back up. At one point of coming in and out of memory I remember talking to the doctor and hearing him say that he needed to focus and needed me to stop talking to him. I promptly thanked him for becoming a doctor so he could do this for me and then I didn’t remember much after that. When things were wrapping up I could tell they were taking images of my chest so I attempted to bring a thumbs-up under the blue sheet that they would see in the x-ray, and then when I would ask for the x-ray and have it I could post it here and show everyone how cool it looked… it didn’t work. I was way off. My thumb is way lower then where they were focusing the x-rays.
The purpose of this port is to make it easier to administer chemo and draw blood. Every two weeks I would get a few needles stabs in the arm but with the port they will only need to go through that. It will sit in my chest in front of a rib with a catheter that leads right into a vein in my chest. Well now that this port is put in I can now start chemo. It will be on Thursday the 26th, they will hook up some tubes or something and I will blog about that crap experience too.
I was lucky this time not to have to remember how to describe what my wife looked like on the way back to my room or I might have been in trouble. Maybe I should get her face tattooed on my arm, so when someone asks what she looks like when I’m under the influence I can just point and grunt… What do you think Renée? I already know her answer. It would be “How about you know what I look like Clay.”
Got to bed, ate food, and got to finally use our brand new Galaxy Tab. I put my ear phones in and covered my eyes… took pictures of what I looked like, and then fell asleep. I must have been tired because I feel asleep listening to bluegrass, just like am now writing this blog. I was woken and started the checkout process. Renée was called at around that time and started her way down with Liliana. Liliana had her check up that day as well so they were already out and ready to come and get me.
My son P.Wee had an early version of this put in his chest before you were born. We called it "Ivey" for the IV's he would receive. We also called it his snake. It sure made everything much easier.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you have kept you great sense of humor through all of this. I really enjoyed reading your post.