Beam Me Up, Scotty

My medical adventure continued this week with a little surgical procedure called “port placement.” The port was implanted in my chest.

“Doc, once I have a port, I’ll be able to get out of here, right?”

“Yes, it’s an outpatient procedure. You can go home as soon as the drugs wear off.”

“No, I mean, I will have a PORT. Doesn’t that mean I can travel to other times and/or galaxies?”

“Um, no.”

Well, that’s no fun. In reality, a port is a little plastic gadget that puts a catheter in a vein leading directly to my heart, and a little button that lets the aliens, oops, I mean medical professionals, deliver my chemo infusion through it. Because who wouldn’t want a whopping dose of poison, oops, I mean medicine, pumped straight into their heart?

Anyway, using the port will allow me to avoid the days of pain I had when they infused me through my arm. Or so they say. Regardless, I now have a snazzy medic alert bracelet to let any alien/medical professional who might be conducting experiments/saving my life know about the port before they do anything violent to my chest.

Meanwhile, this is a celebration weekend here at the HSIHC household, because I have officially completed my first cycle of chemo. Woohoo! I am ¼ of the way through this phase of my treatment, with three cycles to go.

As it turns out, a celebration weekend looks pretty much like every other weekend, because

a. There’s a pandemic going on and I am immunocompromised.

b. My energy level is pretty low.

c. Most importantly, we are introverts and weren’t going anywhere anyway.

So, dinner, a murder mystery on the telly (currently working our way through Unforgotten), and an early bedtime. Sounds great to me.

I have a week off from treatment and then cycle 2 begins next Friday, so let’s get this party started. I hope you are all having great weekends, too.