Problem child

...yep, that's me. Back from vacation in North Carolina Wednesday night, and in for another round of treatment on Thursday morning. It should have been just another routine day of chemotherapy, but somehow things just went awry right from the start. Lately, it's been more difficult to use my port (where the needle goes in to administer the chemo), with some writhing and wriggling necessary on my part, or the use of the "rattlesnake venom" treatment to dissolve any tissue that may have blocked the end of the catheter (like we did last time). This time, no amount of gyration or rattlesnake venom could open up the clog (we tried the rattlesnake juice twice), so we had to get a lab sample from my arm, and then attempt to administer the chemo through an IV in my arm. I say "attempt" because it took three trys to successfully get an IV started. My skin has become so tough and leathery that getting a needle into it and not all the way through a blood vessel is pretty tough. Try #1 left a huge bruise, Try #2 produced a huge swollen knot, and Try#3 finally worked. This made for another long day, along with some bruised up arms to show for it.

Since my port was clogged, I had to go back to the hospital on Friday to have a "dye study" done to see where the clog was and if it could be removed. But before we could do the study, they needed a blood sample and had to start an IV again. Remember Thursday? Friday was a repeat of Thursday, and it took three tries to get one to work (thanks to their IV specialist who finally hit the winning vein). The picture above doesn't show all the holes poked in me, but I'm sure that a big drink of water would have had me looking like a lawn sprinkler. A note to Rick D. who is one of my friends and is presently studying to work in an oncology unit back in NC (it was good to see you last week!) - sticking your patients with needles is NOT easy work on some patients - I needed to have specialists to get my IVs started.

The dye study was pretty neat - I was sent up to the same surgical area where I had my port installed back in July 2006. I wish that I could have had a copy of the fluoroscope image that clearly showed my port and catheter in great detail. The image showed a flap of tissue over the end of the catheter that looked like it was approximately 1 cm x 1 cm. It's no wonder that the rattlesnake venom treatment didn't work - there was just too much stuff to dissolve. The surgeon indicated that this was pretty easy to fix - he could just cut off the flap. This would be simpler than removing the old port (nothing wrong with it) and installing a new one (I was disappointed that I didn't get the chance to "upgrade" to a fancy new titanium "power port" though). I don't remember much more after this - I got shaved some more (which should have me scratching like a professional baseball player later this week) and that's all I remember until waking up again back in the recovery area. While I was conked out, the surgeon fished a probe and cutting tool up my femoral artery (near my groin) all the way up to my shoulder, clipped off the offending tissue and removed it (see diagram to right - the bright ring in my shoulder is my port). I still can't figure out how he did it, but whatever he did, it worked. I spent the next several hours sleeping off the anesthesia in the recovery area before heading back to the treatment center for one more shot. So now I'm ready for the next treatment in two weeks, with no need for wild gyrations or rattlesnake venom to get the bad stuff put in.

And I'll need some more bad stuff put in - my marker number went up to 21, which may be because I skipped a week of treatment. Whatever the reason, it's obvious that we're still not done, and so I'll keep on with the treatments.

And thanks to Dr. Feldman and his team for the nice visit in surgery - I'm a satisfied customer.