Routine Procedures

Here are a few things I've decided about “routine” medical procedures.

1. They are only routine for the people performing them. (I've had lots of "routine" procedures once and hope not to have most of them again.)
2. If they offer pain meds – take them!! (The doctors have no clue what these procedures feel like!!)

 I finally got my port removed last week. You are under sedation when it goes in – so it is like outpatient surgery. When they pull it out they numb the area and then they literally pull it out. An assistant holds the vein down so you don’t bleed out while the doctor stitches it up, and then you up and then off you go. No restrictions, no post op care, you are done.

My doctor chatted with me all the way through it. As he tugged at the port he commented that my body had grown to like it and he was having trouble getting it out… but not to worry he would get it. (Great.) He commented that pulling a port out of an 80 year old woman was like pulling something out of butter, but since I was young and healthy (I guess compared to an 80 year old with cancer I am at least young) my body had healed around it and absorbed it.

Finally it was liberated from my body and now a week later is feeling good. Luckily that is all there is to report on the medical front. I don't go back to my oncologist until early March. I have a post op visit for cancer #2 early Feb but don't expect anything from that that.

The most painful thing of late is getting back in the routine of waking up to an alarm clock versus sleeping in everyday. Now that the girls are old enough they sleep in too vacations and weekends are wonderful! I hope we will all be back in the groove soon but somehow think with the cold weather and dark days we may be in for a few months of dragging in the mornings!!