On my first trip to Ross Hall I was presented with the option of a Port-A-Cath to help with the administering of the drugs over the course of the programme. The argument here is that the cannula is difficult sometimes to land in chemo patients due to the 'Chemo Vein' effect and that for long term patients the Port-A-Cath treatment is possibly a no brainer. For the first cycle I just went with the flow and had the cannula. On the journey home my left arm could feel every bump on the road and was painful for at least a week after the infusion. Again, after cycle 1, I was offered the Port-A-Cath again and by this time I had done my research. I'm totally Mr Squeamish when it comes to do with operations, hospitals, needles or the sight of blood. I've passed out in Dr offices many times just at the thought of needles or hospitals so have accepted that I have a very bad phobia which needs to be constantly managed. Anyway, I thought that I could survive without the Port-A-Cath and I went for round 2 without the implant being made. That journey home was a lot worse than the first one. I had taken the decision again to have the infusion in my left arm which was a bad idea anyway but the accumulation of the poison in this arm felt excruciatingly painful and the after effects went on for weeks. The bruising on my left arm took weeks to actually bruise and when it did, it has left my veins solid to the extent that the arm is now difficult for the nurse to work with. So with all this going on and Round 3 rapidly approaching, I was again asked if I would consider the port.
I think Ross Hall had a party line created for me. I think it said something like 'If Allan Andrew phones, convince him at all costs that the Port-A-Cath is the best, most pain free procedure ever invented'. I say this as I've called a couple of times looking to try and move the operation so that I could have it in theatre under a general anaesthetic however each time I called I usually got a very shouty nurse at the opposite end that said the procedure was not available in theatre, without giving cause, but would say that this is a treatment for children and women with breast cancer and that it really was nothing to be scared of. Spot the psychology in there. Anyway when I was in Ross Hall after the exploding gullet situation, Sheila came to talk to me about the options for the next round of chemo. As ever we got into the conversation about the port and by this time I had read everything on the internet and found no real horror stories. If fact if you research the people perspective on this you will generally find 90%+ of people were in favour of the operation due to the simplification of getting bloods and infusions done further down the line. Whether it was the extended research I had done or whether it was mainly down to the fact that I had just spent the last 4 nights in hospital and had dealt with my Nemesis on every level and felt that I could actually deal with anything else that my castle of dread could throw at me, I'll never know but I have lost a lot of my apprehension about hospitals now.
So after agreeing with Sheila that I wanted a port, she managed the logistics and I was booked in for Thursday Feb 23rd (Today). My sleep on Wednesday night, the night before, was fine. In fact I think I had a totally unbroken sleep with no sweating or bad dreams. I got up feeling fresh and a bit more relaxed than normal and I did think that this was peculiar but accepted this as a bit of a win. I am fighting the tumour in my mouth with CBD oil and have found that this grows and contracts regularly but applying a few drops of CBD a day certainly reduces the overall bulk of the tumour and by reducing the tumour, my teeth are starting to solidify. Anyway, on the morning of the day, I decided to have an extra shot of CBD. I sometimes get stupid with medicines, have done all my life, if the box says take 2 three times a day, I'll take 3, 4 times a day and stuff like that so the extra shot to me was nothing special. I spent 30 minutes talking to god on the porcelain telephone after doing the extra shot. Being violently sick hours before a procedure is not really a great idea but I put it down to nerves, they had to be in there somewhere.
We left house around 11am and it was snowing. Not for one minute did I think that 'yeah it's snowing, might not make the hospital', I was just desperate to get in there get it done and get home. The drive to Ross Hall was an uneventful 40 minute transfer and we arrived at a bulging car park. Luckily when we were in on Tuesday we found a really sneaky space which doesn't look like a space but when we got to Ross Hall a car was leaving and we jumped into the unmarked ash filled space - result! We logged in at reception and 20 minutes later I was lying in a Ross Hall bed again reminiscing about the 5 days I spent here. So a nurse swung by and tried putting a cannula in my left arm again. By this point I've have about 8 cannulas in this arm over a couple of months and when she connected everything up nothing worked, it was a dry vein. We moved to the right arm but I was fairly pissed that I had to suffer the probing in the other arm. The left arm worked although where the cannula was placed it was very sore and the nurse playing with the equipment in order to extract some blood brought me out in a cold sweat and eventually I was told that the bloods were good and they would do for tomorrow's chemo. I had already given bloods for this and was again a little pissed that I didn't need to go through that procedure. As everyone who knows me will tell, I never lose the plot for anything. Everything I do is well co-ordinated and chilled super cool, that's the way I roll :) Anyway I lost it for a moment when the nurse left, shouting a little at Carol - 'Can't f****** believe it I get probed for a vein and then I don't actually need to give blood Aaaargh!'. I kinda quickly came around from my anguish as I realised that the port I was getting was exactly to stop these incidents happening and perhaps if I had done it sooner I wouldn't be getting angry at a nurse who had been causing me a tiny bit of pain. I soon stopped feeling sorry for myself again and came around to the fact that the Port-A-Cath will resolve these sorts of issues.
Whilst visiting Ross Hall on this day, I noted to the nurses that my tumour under my left arm was now breaking through the skin and I was offered a skin management (or something) nurse to help me manage the pain and the weeping from the sore. Later on in the day the nurse came by and admitted that what she was seeing was very unusual indeed. This is nothing I said, I have been in the low percentile for everything until now. Nobody seems to get what I have from oesophageal cancer so everything is usually new to most people. She dressed the sore and advised that I would need to get someone to look at it - I'm back tomorrow so will speak to the circus.
So we waited about 2 hours or more in the room and eventually Dr Christie came along and described the procedure and got me to sign the consent form. Essentially you get two slits, one in your neck and one in your chest. The port is put in your chest and the tubes are fed up to the slit in your neck. From here the Dr uses radio scope to follow the tube as he inserts it into something around the jugular. Yes when he said jugular to me I flipped a bit but I thought, 'what the hell, I'm here now'. After another little while a nurse came to collect me. Not sure what was going on but there were no porters on display and the nurse let me walk down to the surgery in socks, jeans which are now hanging off me and one of the hospital gowns on which was back to front. I must have looked like an escaped special case tbh. It was a strange feeling walking into an operating room and getting presented to the crew who were going to work on me. I lay back on the bed and was given oxygen through the nose. I was also given a hair net in order to keep the hair away from the sticky paper towels that they put across my face and all around my neck. Most people get freaked out with this but I was actually very happy at the outcome as if I did open my eyes I could not see anyone around. I spoke with the nurse prior to the operation and said that I was looking for the max dose of sedation. I'm not sure if that happened or not but I can remember being awake for long periods during the procedure just looking at the paper towel on my face. I could feel the force of stuff getting pulled and pushed but I was never in any pain or discomfort. Eventually the Dr peeled back the paper towel and said 'you ok in there?'. I had my eyes wide open at that point and I just responded yeah I'm fine to which he responded 'you are being an amazing patient, gold star' or something like that. The sedation has amnesia affects but I know he would have said something about how well I was dealing with the procedure :)
Whilst I was down in the radiology lab getting sliced, Carol took a box of chocolates to the nurses station on the 4th floor where I was kept in for 4 nights. Although a nice thought, there were no nurses on that shift that dealt with me through my episode. I must have dealt with over forty nurses when I was in, just made me think about the amount of nursing staff that are required to run a small ward like Ross Hall.
The procedure finished, I knew nothing about it really, had no pain and got a porter to wheel me back to my room. The missing porter earlier is down to cost savings I think - If they can walk, let them ... or something along those lines. So I was now back in my room about 1 hour from the initial pick up time. I lay in bed for an hour or so, had some soup and fluids as the nurses assessed my fitness for release. I had my vitals taken a couple of times and eventually they were happy enough to let me go and Carol and I made a break for it whilst we could. I could sense the circus waking up and my name was being banded about a bit so didn't want to get in a situation where we were waiting in a hospital room for 3 hours whilst someone worked out the schedules for tomorrow.
So we managed back home for around 6:30, I ate a hearty bowl of Corned Beef Hash, no issues. Overall the Port-A-Cath insertion is really nothing to be worried about. It's a simple procedure and with sedation there is very little to recall about the time on the operating table. I start the new chemo regime tomorrow and that will tell me if the faffing about today has actually been worth it. Watch this space and I'll update you with the test drive results.
