Port in place

I got a little behind with the holidays, but I've spoken with all of you (kids!) about this already. Last Thursday Dad had a port put in to be an easy access for his chemo treatments. It was actually a bit of a longer surgical procedure than I had thought...the surgery itself took about 45 min to an hour. The doctor came in afterwards and said that all went well. They made a puncture point in the side of Dad's neck which enabled the doctor to "tunnel" down a few inches lower to implant the port into his upper chest. The port is under the skin, but you can see it (a raised area) and feel it, so it's easy to access for chemo and for blood draws. It seems to be about 1" or so across (it's triangular shaped). It has a catheter going from the port to a central vein going to the heart. Dad has to carry around a card in his billfold identifying the fact that he has a port for emergency reasons (he also is wearing a rubber bracelet that alerts medical emergency technicians of the same).

Here's what it looks like:

And here's what it looks like implanted under the skin:

Dad got along fine during the procedure and the nurse seemed to be a little surprised that Dad stayed awake during the whole procedure, even though they gave him drugs (through the IV) that were to take him to lala land, but then as Sara says...Dad is a freak of nature! So he chatted with the doctor during the whole thing.

The surgery included the puncture wound in his neck and then a 2" incision for the implant.

The nurse went over the care of the stitches, what he could take for pain, what he could and couldn't do for a few day. He asked her if he could shovel snow and she looked at him like he was nuts...but her answer of "no" seemed to please him. He had the nurse write that down on the instruction sheet (the one that he had to sign to approve) so I would be sure to see it (as if Nurse Ratchet would even consider that!)

He had to wait in post-op for about an hour and then he came home. He had a bit of discomfort later on and even went to bed before half-time of the Nebraska-Washington bowl game (but then that was another source of discomfort!).

On Friday, he was a bit uncomfortable, but Tylenol took care of it. By Saturday it was still bandaged, but was irritated because of the bandage adhesive tape, so I removed it and put another gauze pad and different tape to hold it. Today (Sunday) it was irritated again by the other tape, so we took off the bandages (as directed) after the 72 hours. It looks good with no signs of infection. It was really good for Dad to get the port several days before the chemo starts to give things a chance to settle down.

Dad goes to work tomorrow (Monday) as usual and then begins his first round of chemo on Tuesday. That day is a long one...8 hours. Then he continues the treatment Wed. and Thurs, but those days are slightly shorter...I think 4 or 5 hours. I will keep you posted of Dad's progress of these treatments and I should be able to post during the day as they have computers I can use just outside of the chemo area.

Keep those positive thoughts and prayers coming this week!