Titty Gate

Echocardiogram and Port Insertion

I left my house at 8am this morning to get my echo done at 9am… if you’ve never had one of these, it’s where they take ultrasound photographs of your heart… jamming your rib cage, stomach, and neck with an ultrasound… really fun.

My port insertion was scheduled for 10:30am and the surgical unit was hunting me down in cardiology at 9:30am… needless to say after getting up there, having the IV jammed in my hand and anxiously awaiting my departure to the Radiology department… I sat there for 2 hours waiting to go down. Not sure what the fire was about at 9:30 when they basically dragged me out of cardiology to get upstairs to just sit there…Bizarre and aggravating.

I was particularly unhappy by the time I made it downstairs considering when I went for my lumpectomy, a much more invasive procedure, I was scheduled for 1pm and wheeled into the OR at 1:05pm. I was hungry and dehydrated and had a splitting migraine when I was finally wheeled into the room.

All that being said, Dr Yu and his team were awesome. I was awake for this… that was not communicated, I thought I was going under twilight anesthesia… which was fine, they numbed me up with that lovely burning lidocaine and administered Versed and a light dose of Fentanyl just to calm me. The nurse said normally people ask for more and get loopy. I, being the pain anomaly that I am lol, was fine with the standard dose and spent the entire procedure chatting with the Dr and Nurse about being ’81 babies while we listened to 80’s/90’s jams. I always try to make the best of it. Even though I was super cranky getting in there. I have 2 tiny incisions on my chest and the port is smaller than I thought it would be so it’s not screaming cancer patient as much as I thought it would. I can remove the bandages in 3 days and I’ll share a pic.

I got home much later than I wanted to and the delay did kind of screw up my plans for the day. I have some pertinent work matters to take care of before I begin Chemo and I didn’t get to do that but it’s ok. One day at a time.

Susan drove over the bridge, round of applause for her. I am now resting comfortably in bed with my Narwhal Squishmallow for company!