Day 281 - imPORTant details

Well, the days go quickly so I find myself saying things like "It's nine o'clock; I better do the NYT crossword and then go to bed" and the weeks go even faster so a whole week goes by without even a 'how do you do?' from me to the blogosphere.

Since the last time I've posted, I have been to the New Orleans conference, learned a lot, come home, spent a week with Emily including a happy birthday, sent her back to school, got my port out and worked for a week.

I think I'll post another day about the conference and all the cool stuff I learned. I'll mention that Emily turned 22 this week and that we had such a nice visit with her. We went out to dinner several times and made mac 'n' cheese and went out for coffee and tried to buy a scarf. Ultimately, she decided the scarf she really wanted was one a former patient made me after my diagnosis. My former patient heard from Ellie's friend's mom about my story and said, "Hey! Is her name Mary?" and made me a beautiful shawl which works nicely as a scarf too and which I will now pass on to Emily. Kind of nice, huh? Other activities with Emily involved chocolate, bookstores and coffee as would be expected.

After the jump, I'll post a couple of pictures and some text about my port. When I had it out, I asked my surgeon if I could have the port to keep. He turned to his nurse and said, "Do we have a policy about that? No one has ever asked before." If you have wondered what the port looks like without all that skin and SQ fat over it, now's your chance to find out. It's not too gross, but there is a small amount of what used to be part of me stuck to it.

 

The port in place.

The port in a urine cup with sterile saline. The black part in the metal part is where the needle goes and the white thing goes up to my EJ.

There is not enough light in the kitchen to get a good picture of my wound so that will have to wait to another night. It looks pretty good, only a little bruising and nice and clean.

I am thankful to be in a position where I can get it out safely. I am hopeful for myself to never need it back. I am hopeful for you to never need one.