Rejected! + update

Update one day later...we are good to go for chemo #5 tomorrow! Read on if you missed this week's excitement.

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It has been a lovely last few days. Quality time with my sister and her family this weekend was very good medicine for my heart and soul. We lucked out with fantastic weather and the cousins made the most of the beautiful days. The dogs had fun too! They are also photogenic. ;)

Chemo port rejection story...

It had been about 2 months since my chemo port was put in. In that time it had a good start healing, then things regressed a bit, but with the advice of my amazing nurses things were looking a bit better again a week or two ago. Still, the incision never completely closed up (one stubborn little end just would not heal) and I have been using steri strips to help keep things in place and encourage healing. Well, over the last couple of days my body decided to assert itself and rejected the port once and for all. 

!!! Skip the next paragraph if you don't like to hear about gross body things, okay?

On Sunday night, the stubborn end of the incision (that hadn't yet healed) looked a bit more open than it had the day before. Seeing this, I put a bandage over the whole thing to protect it from germs. It was a bit sore under the bandage throughout the day Monday while we sat at the beach, packed, and traveled back to Barrie. We got home around 4, unpacked, had dinner, and then I took a shower. Before my shower I peeled off the bandage and things were NOT GOOD under there. I could SEE the white plastic port in two different places along the length of the incision. I cleaned it quickly and put another bandage on right away to protect the unwanted new holes in my body from germs. I phoned the evening cancer hotline (yes, they have that!) and spoke with a nurse who told me I could wait until morning to go to the cancer centre to have it looked at. Rick and I watched an episode of the new Star Trek and I tried to distract myself from thinking about this little disaster. Every time I moved I felt like I could feel the holes getting bigger. It didn't hurt - just felt a bit itchy - but thinking about it made me cringe. This morning I woke up, ate a quick breakfast, and Rick dropped me off at the cancer centre. I chose to NOT peek at the little disaster on my chest again, but three nurses gathered around to took a peek and agreed that the port was on its way out. I learned a new medical term: dehiscence. It is the term used when wound healing fails and a surgical incision reopens. The same term is used in botany when a plant structure opens up along a line of weakness. So, dehiscence in the plant kingdom is way better than the kind I got to experience.

"The word for a seed pod that dries and splits like this is “dehiscent.”
It is dehiscent. It dehisces. The event is a dehiscence." (Helen Fields, source)

I am extremely lucky that a doctor in the imaging department agreed to remove the port AND install a new picc line today. The port removal needed to be today but I might have had to wait longer to get a new picc so I'm very grateful it could all happen right away. Both procedures went well and the nursing staff in the imaging department were as phenomenal as they were for my last two procedures.

Fun fact re: snoring

According to my family, on Sunday night and Monday night (last night) I snored louder than anyone has ever snored before. Like *really* loud. These were the two nights that my incision was having trouble. I spoke with one of the nurses about this today and she said she wasn't surprised - that people often has disturbed sleep when their bodies were dealing with something like this. I hope for my family's sake that she is correct and that I will sleep more quietly tonight.

Fun fact re: red hair

The nurse who was primarily in charge of my care today asked me early in the proceeding whether I had red hair. I said no, but told her I had redheads in the family. She explained that in her experience people with fair skin and especially those with red hair were a little more likely to experience this kind of setback. I can say with certainty that my red-haired dad is a very slow healer, as is my red-haired brother. I haven't done any research to see if this is backed up with any evidence but found it interesting. Even if I am somewhat predisposed to slow/poor healing it's likely that being on chemo also played a role in my poor outcome.

So...I am again asking for good vibes re: bloodwork and my doctor's appointment tomorrow. The nurses in the chemo suite did a great job tempering my expectations, so I am mentally prepared for a delay if that is what happens. I'll add an update here tomorrow when I know what's up.