Not the Smoothest

So I had my chest port put in this morning.  Here is a checklist of everything that happened.

1. Take a Xanax to ensure several hours of sleep.  CHECK
2. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight. CHECK
3. Take daily meds at the crack of dawn with a teeny, tiny sip of water in fear that more than that would push back procedure.  CHECK
4. Leave the house by 6am.  CHECK
5. Beat the traffic on I95 and get there early, CHECK.
6. Get a stomachache during the ride due to stress, DOUBLE CHECK!
7. Get changed, use the bathroom and wait for them to call my name, CHECK.
8. Get my IV on the first try, CHECK.
9. Lay on the very skinny table.  CHECK
10. Doctors clean the area and talk to me way too much to try to distract me from the fact that within the hour a foreign object will be permanently inserted under my skin so that poison can more easily flow through my veins to kill my cancer, CHECK.
11. Drugs pumped into my IV to relax me.  CHECK
12. Lidocaine injected directly into the sight to numb the area (extra for me because I am a redhead and apparently we have extra sensitive nerves).  CHECK
13.  Port and a tube that was far too long for me to think about inserted into my vein.  CHECK
14. Sit up, with nurses help, immediately after the procedure.  CHECK.
15.  Walk a short distance to a chair and have my IV removed so that I could leave.  CHECK
16.  Less than a minute later, turn white, get lightheaded and insanely nauseous, CHECK!!!!
17. Get put into a wheely type of chair and put onto a stretcher.  CHECK
18. Drink water, orange juice and eat saltines.  CHECK
19. Have ANOTHER IV inserted for fluids and anti-nausea drugs because I still felt sick.  CHECK!
20.  Wait another hour or more until my blood pressure, pulse and skin color were normal.  CHECK
21.  Get into a wheelchair and wheeled to the car.  CHECK

I have now been home for six hours and have hardly moved from the couch.  The incision on my neck is much sorer than I expected it would be.  It hurts to swallow too quickly.  It hurts to laugh, sneeze, cough, or talk for too long.  Even though I am in pain, I can handle that.  I hate that I can't hold Hudson for 72 hours.  Even after that time passes I still have to be careful because he could bump the port and I can only imagine how lovely that would feel.

The crazy part about this procedure was how calm I was again.  I usually get so sick to my stomach that I end up spending all morning and sometimes the night before in the bathroom.  Not this time.  I am ready to beat this and the port is the first step to getting the medicine I need to win the battle.  A little pain and the days to come are nothing compared to the 10 months of pain I have been dealing with.  Scan me, prick me, and kill this cancer!

UPDATE (2-21-13): So it has been 4 days since the port was put in and thank goodness each day is less disgusting.  The gaggy, vomity, pokey feeling is lessening with each passing hour.  The pain in the incisions and 6 inch bruise is also fading.  Maybe the doctors were serious when they told me that after 2 weeks I would not even notice it.  Oh except for the fact that anyone can see a lump and tube running under my skin.  Other than that, totally normal! 

Some random, sort of funny, things I remember from the procedure...

I was shocked by how skinny the table was that I had to lay on.  I am thin and I was nervous I wouldn't fit.  I expressed this concern to the tech and asked how larger people (trying to be PC) fit on a table so small.  He says, "Oh, all the fat people have hangovers."  Ha, that cracked me up.  Apparently there are plastic sides that can be added on to hold up people's extraness.

While another nurse or someone was wiping me down with iodine he says, "Don't worry, I will make sure to clean you up so you don't look like Snooki when you leave."  At this point I was covered with a sheet and could not see what he was doing.  Iodine is orange so that they can see where they sterilized before starting a procedure.  He made sure to wipe off the "fake tan" before I left, haha.  Because that was my major concern that day.