I met with the vascular surgeon on November 21. He asked
when I would like to have the surgery.
I told him the sooner the better. He said he could do the surgery the
next morning, which was a Tuesday, and that way I could have
my chemo treatment on Wednesday,
11/23 using the new port.
We arrived at the out-patient surgery center bright and
early and I had the preliminary blood work,
x-rays, etc. I was wheeled to the operating room, given anesthesia and promptly went to sleep. I woke up in the recovery room with several
young doctors hovering over me. One of them asked if I knew what a pneumothorax
was. I replied that yes, I did- it was
a collapsed lung. Turns out that’s what I now had in addition to the new port.
I was told the port placement went well
that the new port was placed on my right side with a subclavian approach. Turns out that means my new port has a catheter that runs on top of my collar bone
and up into my jugular vein. In the
process of placing it, my lung got nicked resulting in a 20% pneumothorax. After calling Mr. G in to tell him what was
going on, they said they were going to
place a chest tube and admit me to the hospital. So much for out-patient surgery and having chemo the next day!
The young resident placed the chest tube while I was still
in the recovery room and I was taken up to a room and told I’d probably be
there for several days. I told them I
had no intention of being there over the Thanksgiving holidays so I began to
think positively, visualizing my lung fully inflating as I practiced some yoga
breathing. Oddly enough, the lung
didn’t hurt when I breathed and had it not been for the tube, which was quite
uncomfortable, I’d not have known anything was wrong. I spent the night and had
several visits from various medical personnel the next morning. My breathing and positive visualizing
efforts were working! After a series of x-rays showed that my lung was fully
inflated, they said they would remove the tube and if everything checked out I
could go home later that day. The young resident who had placed the tube and an intern came in at
around 2 o’clock to remove the tube. That was quite an interesting experience.
First they took a big piece of gauze and covered it with something resembling
Vaseline. They placed the dressing over the tube and snipped some sutures that
held the tube in place. The young
doctor told me they were going to apply some pressure and when they did I
should take a deep breath and hold it. Which I did, and as I did one of them
said, “pull” the other one pulled and out came the tube. They taped the dressing in place and said
they’d need to check for a few hours to make sure everything was OK. That meant several more x-rays. My oncologist stopped by to check on me and told
me to call the office on Monday to reschedule my missed chemo session, and I
was discharged at 7PM on
Wednesday. So I didn’t have to stay in
the hospital over the Thanksgiving holidays after all and we were able to eat
Thanksgiving dinner at Jonathan and
Sharil’s house as planned! Yippee!
My chemo treatment was rescheduled for Wednesday, 11/30 and the new port worked
well for both the blood draw and the treatment, which was quite a relief. The port and catheter were quite uncomfortable
for quite a while afterwards, though, whenever I turned my head or moved my arm
a certain way, and the dry skin across
my chest did not help. A post op visit with the vascular surgeon confirmed
everything seemed to be healing well and there haven’t been any problems with
blood draws or treatments since the surgery.
I had a CT scan on December 12 that showed a decrease in the
size of the ablation focus in the liver and there was no evidence of new
metastatic disease, so that was a relief and meant I could enjoy the Christmas season
without worrying about what the latest scan
would show. And now we’re almost caught up to the present- one more blog
entry should do the job.
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