Port of Entry
The &TLDR version is that the port is in, and Laura is recovering well!
For those of you who enjoy reading the story version, we were up before six am (after being up way too late laughing at Zillow Goes Wild postings) to head over to Mercy Hospital for Laura’s port surgery. She learned on Wednesday that she wouldn’t be going under for surgery, just getting a local anesthesia, or conscious sedation. If you want to know all of the medical details, head over to the American Cancer Society, and check out the section on implanted ports.
We left for the hospital at about 6:15, arriving before our scheduled 6:45 check-in time and waited until they were ready for us at 7:00. I was fortunately able to go in with Laura to the little room, which reminded me a lot of where I had been for my last two surgeries, and also my ER visit (for anyone who doesn’t know me well – I had polyps removed, followed by hip surgery in early 2020 that led to a kidney stone). I’m glad that at least for all of this waiting, I could be here with her!
They had her use antiseptic wipes to clean the surgical area and put on the hospital gown, and then it was time for the IV line.
He asks a lot of questions and gives instructions, making sure she’s not on any blood thinners, checking her current meds and when she last took them, going over her current diagnosis, etc. This was also the chance for us to ask questions.
Then the doctor came in to go through the procedure and the risks, to allow us to ask any other questions we might have, and to have Laura sign the consent form. Pretty quickly after that, her surgical nurse came in to whisk her away early!
About thirty minutes later, she was done! She said it was not bad at all – they numbed the area, and put a towel/blanket over her face so that she couldn’t see what was happening, and that was it. She has two big incisions, one which is covered at the moment, and one which isn’t (that one is close to her carotid artery), and she’ll have to wait a couple of days to shower and keep an eye out for signs of infection. The port is under the skin (which is different to ones I’ve seen before), but she says she can feel it – no pain at the moment because she’s still numbed up.
She was pretty exhausted after the procedure, a combination of lack of sleep and the medications. So after a little hospital nap…
…we bugged out of there. I made the poor guy at Starbucks regret asking “what are you guys doing today?” when I told him that she had just gotten a port for chemo (I mean, he asked!) and now we’re back home so that Laura can take a real nap. I hope – because the dogs are wandering around, chomping bones, bumping into things, pretending to wait patiently for her to be up, but not being really that successful at it. We’ve already had one incident of bursting through the door to bounce on her bed. Oops! We’ll need to train these gals in dog nursing.
