Without a Port

Dr. Broderick removed my port today. <giggle> Yay! It was weird and really cool.

Frank and I were ushered into one of the examination rooms at the offices of First Surgical Consultants (I tend to hate generic sounding names like that, but I love Dr. Broderick, so I guess I'll let it slide) and I put on one of those lovely paper gowns (Frank said I looked like something out of "Forbidden Planet"). Dr. Broderick showed up and got right to work (and Frank left the room soon thereafter. I mean, there's a reason he's a lawyer...)

Dr. B cleaned the area and shot the area up with Lidocaine (pinch burn, pinch burn, pinch burn, pinch burn..... numb, yay!) He cut the skin above where the port was sitting and explained that the body creates a sac of scar tissue around the port. So he massaged and pushed and massaged and pushed to loosen the sac around the port and eventually it came out. That five minutes or so of massaging (probably less than that, but in these instances, it feels like such a long time, you know?) took up most of the time for the procedure and felt really weird. My skin was being pulled taut and so while nothing was happening at that moment, probably, it just felt weird. Like something was imminent.

And then, voila! I felt the tubing that led from the port to the Subclavian being pulled out. Kinda freaky and kinda neat.

He applied pressure to the spot where the tube had left the vein and I asked him how it healed. He said that the blood flow would prefer to just follow the path nature made for it, through the vein, rather than fight with other tissue and find a path through my body. So, it heals itself.

The human body. Just amazing. (When it's not being a total PITA.)

I can't see where the sutures are now--they're under a bandage--so I'm not sure if this scar just eradicates the one remaining from the insertion of the port, or there are two side-by-side. But given Dr. B's consideration and expert work on the two previous occasions, I'm not too worried.

I brought the port home with me (Dr. Broderick: "Um, you might want to wash that with bleach or something") and I smell a bit like a surgery (that blood and antiseptic smell). But no more foreign bodies in my body! Yay me!

When we left the office I was seriously jittery from an adrenalin rush, but we've been home for about an hour now and my head hurts a bit, and feels tired, so I'm already crashing. I expect to sleep well tonight.

(I go back next week to get the stitches removed.)