Portacath Dye Study

Weight: 138.2
Pain: 0/10
Nausea: 2/10
Depression: 3/10
Swallowing Difficulty: 3/10
Medications: Vitamin E, Multivitamin, Heparin flush

Currently waiting in the waiting room to get my port-a-cath dye study underway.

Its been about 5 hours later and I've been finally discharged. I didn't know it was going to take THAT long. Most of the time I was just lying on my hospital bed naked (except for a gown) waiting until someone would come in. Things finally started rolling after a nurse came over and accessed my port. I had two x-rays of my chest - one with my right arm down and the other with my arm up. The results of this revealed a slight kink when my arm was down. Surprisingly, the dye study which was performed after the x-rays revealed no kink in the catheter. The x-ray machine used in the dye study was one that generated a live-image video of my internals - which was pretty cool to see. So the end result is that there was really no problem with my port. What's probably causing the blockage, most likely, is due to a kink which is probably suspposed to happen since the catheter was inserted in the subclavical vein - instead of the jugular.

One of the doctors I met who was the radiologist was herself a cancer survivor three times over. I haven't personally met any doctors who themselves went through cancer treatments so that was quite an experience. I know that cancer does not discriminate at all, but just knowing a doctor who had it who is treating me makes me feel better.

The worst part out of all of this is that the nurses forgot to give my port-a-cath a heparin flush before removing the needle. This is very important as it can cause the port to clog up with blood rendering the port useless for chemo. Good thing I remembered and told them about the heparin. But isn't it sad that I had to tell them how to do their job?