The Port

Round 2 turned out to be much worse than Round 1 and I was sick longer – 10 days rather than 1 week. I got a very sore throat on day 7 but it didn’t stop me from eating. That day I wanted to eat everything in sight and I had major hunger pangs all day that wouldn’t go away even after I ate something. In the evening I felt so fat and bloated from eating all day and even though I still felt really hungry I just decided I wasn’t eating any more. About an hour later it felt like my stomach was on fire and that lasted into the night. The homecare nurse came the next day and she said she would talk to the Pharmacist at the hospital to see what I could take. He suggested I continue with one of my anti nausea drugs (Domperadone) and even though it wasn’t really nausea that I felt, the pills helped. He also suggested another one for my doctor to prescribe but it took 3 days to get a hold of him to call in the prescription. The Domperidone helped quite a bit but I still had that burning in my guts until I got the new pills. On day 11 my tongue cracked. You couldn’t see it by just looking but if I put my fingers on either side and spread it apart you could see these little tiny cracks all over the tip of my tongue. That was pretty painful for a couple of days too. The second 10 days have been much better.

Last week I got to see my doctor – an appointment I made 2 months ago! He gave me some things to try so my symptoms maybe won’t be so bad next time. On Thursday we went to Saskatoon again and I got my new port put in. This was much easier than getting the PICC line since I had an idea of what to expect. It was great getting the PICC line removed and I didn’t even feel them pull it out. This one is much the same in that there is a tube that threads into a vein in my bicep and loops around like an upside down U and ends up somewhere in my chest. Instead of these two 4 inch tubes sticking out of my arm I now have what looks like an upside down bottle cap just under the skin. It has a rubber top that is supposed to be good for up to 500 needle pokes. They can use this to administer the chemo drugs and also to take blood. (Only now it has to be the on call doctor or there just two nurses at our hospital that can take the blood from the port). For now my arm is bruised and a little sore (and very itchy so I guess it is healing already).