My Alien Abduction

Two days ago I had a port installed.
The end.

Let’s try this again. Two days ago I had a port installed. A Medi-Port or “port” is a small device that is inserted underneath the skin on your chest to make the infusion of chemotherapy drugs easier. At least, that’s what they keep telling me. I’m not completely convinced that’s going to be the case and in 4 more days I’ll find out.
Here’s how it goes – they insert the port under your skin on your chest, then they run a catheter up and over your collar bone and into your jugular vein. Ew right?

​These are the explanations and sample port:

The lovely and gracious Ms. Karen picked me up at 8:00 am on Wednesday and we headed to the the Kaiser on Franklin close to downtown. I won’t bore you with the little details of the appointment but I will say that the staff at Kaiser was ready for me when I walked in, friendly, knowledgable and fun.

They insisted on putting me in a twilight state so I gave in but told them to use “just a little”, which they did. The procedure was fine and aside from a couple of pricks to numb it up (and the IV they inserted during prep) it was relatively painless. Some tugging, pressure here and there, but no pain.
But then I came out looking like this and man… as soon as the numbness wore off, I was in some serious pain!

The best part was when we left Karen got me the most wonderful scones and chocolate chip pumpkin bread!  #friendsrule #sweetsonanemptystomachaftersurgery #thatsnotarealhashtag
Then it all went downhill. The first night was miserable and everything hurt except when I was upright and still. Kinda hard to sleep upright and still. But I got through it and the next day was much better. Today it’s still sore but manageable. Can’t stretch my right pectoral, neck muscles are stiff where they stabbed a whole in my neck.
And on an unrelated note, yesterday I was talked into a flu shot…”your immune system will be compromised, you should have one every year anyway, you’ll be happy you did, bla, bla, bla” and now it hurts to move the other arm too! Fr@c#ing Aagh!
The port looks pretty freaky under my skin – I think I’m going to tell people I was abducted by aliens in the night and woke up with THIS (pointing to port with crazy look on my face).
And tomorrow I’m going to teach three Zumba classes all before noon! Yep, that’s how I roll.