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Friday 10 August 2012

I have an alien in me!

OMG as I write this post I am so tired you cannot possibly imagine, however I'm also suffering from the most severe case of writers withdrawal, so I just have to write a blog post - even if it's just something little.  So I'm going to tell you the story of my little Alien.  Let's call him Mork.

So Mork is my port-a-cath that I had surgically installed in my chest on Tuesday.  Here is a link to what it is, consider yourself lucky I'm not linking you to a Youtube video of the surgery LOL!!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_(medical).  Anyway, I was pretty scared to have this surgery done so my anxiety level was quite high when Wendy picked me up at the ugly hour of 6:30AM to drive to the hospital.  Once there however, I was greeted by a lovely, happy nurse who was kind and understood my nervousness.  She said they do at least one of these a day and it's not so bad and the "radiologist", yes, not the "surgeon" was very good.  That at first was a bit of a shock, however she seemed so confident, so I went with the flow.  Although I did ask for Ativan - what's a girl to do when under a little stress.

Shortly after the Ativan, the nurse hooked me up to an IV, and I have to say she was so good at that, I didn't even feel the needle going in, then she rolled me into the operating room and the fun began.  It took three nurses, an anaesthetist and a technician almost 20 minutes to set up the bed and me for the surgery.  First they had to position me on the bed, then they had to position all this massive machinery around me, then they had to hook things up to both my fingers, I know one was for Oxygen SAT levels, but I'm not sure what the other one was for.  It was quite intimidating.  I was lying there watching this HUGE 70 plus inch TV screen which is what the radiologist would later use to see inside my body to make sure he inserted the little rubber tube into my jugular vein and not accidentally somewhere else.  This screen also showed my heart rate, blood pressure, Oxygen SAT levels, and some other measurements that I couldn't recognize.

I can tell you it was bloody intimidating lying there with all this stuff going on around me, I thought this was supposed to be pretty simple surgery.  At least I could see the TV and watch my heart rate, so I played this little game where I tried to slow my heart rate down - it wasn't working.  Then things got ugly, one of the nurses came and cleaned my chest and my neck all over with a sterile solution, then they put this huge drape sheet over my head.  It had a hole in it with sticky sides that stuck to my chest and neck, leaving an opening for the doc to get at, and the rest of it lay across my head.  Talk about claustrophobia.  I just about had a fit until they got a little gadget and placed it just above my head and put the sheet across it so it was not covering my face.  Finally the Doctor arrived, came around and introduced himself, although I could only see a fraction of his face, he looked old enough and competent enough to do this.  Here we go.....he started poking and prodding my chest, I guess checking for muscle mass etc.  Then he said he was going to start!  Um!  Excuse Me!  Start???? I'm still awake, where are the sedatives??  Hellooooooooo.........  remember me, the person you are about to cut into, I'm not some super human pain loving freak, I need meds!!  So they complied and gave me something via the IV that made me feel all soft and nice all over, so he started with the needles.  No wait stop, I can still feel you, more meds please.....this isn't what I expected, I don't want to feel the needles and I certainly don't want to feel the scalpel as it cuts into my skin.  Prick, prick, more needles in the neck and chest, then suddenly I'm gone.  La La Land!

In the recovery room.
I wake up to the lovely nurse smiling at me and I'm in the recovery area and it's done.  Phew, all done, and really not so bad, just tender, but then I guess I'm still numb.  "How did it go", I ask, "Just great, no problems at all" she says.   Oh lucky me, it's done, over with and wasn't nearly as scary as I thought.  I take a little peak down to my chest but I can't see anything other than two big bandages.  One just on my lower neck and one in the middle of my chest to the left hand side with a bump under it about the size of half a ping pong ball.  My little "Mork", he's going to save my veins from collapse and make chemo and blood drawing so much easier.

I am very thankful for my Dad and his wife who picked me up and have looked after me over the last couple of days, including feeding me delicious meals.  It has been three days and Mork and the incision sites are still sore and throbbing, but I think I'm healing okay.  Sleep has been very difficult as I cannot move around much and can only sleep on my back or on my right hand side with a pillow supporting my left arm.  So, that being said, I'm going to call it a night and sign off.  Dream land is waiting.

Nanu Nanu,
Michelle

2 comments:

Unknown said...

thinking of you michelle - you and mork that is - in time all this will just be so much of an 80's sitcom. Right? Dam right. hugs.. Steve.

Unknown said...

Thanks Steve can't wait for that day.

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