The New Year started with two seemingly simple medical tasks that were to take place during one hospital admission: placement of a port in his chest and a 3-4 day in hospital chemotherapy treatment.
The port is a small device that that is installed beneath your skin and acts like a pincushion that is connected to a catheter that connects the port to a vein. The ‘pincushion’ also known as a septum is where drugs can be injected into your body and where blood samples can be drawn with less discomfort for patients that would otherwise turn into living pin cushions. For Nick, a port is a good solution to free him up from lines in his arms or coming out of his chest. When he was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer #2 he had a tube coming out of his chest called a central line. The port was inserted in his upper chest (known as a “chest port”), just below the collar bone and the whole idea is to allow him to be free of tubes sticking out of his body for the next 9 months.
He had a quick return to the operating room following placement of the port because it was kinked during the original placement. The picture below shows what the port looks like post-op. As with everything else that is medically attached to your body that is considered a foreign object, there is always a risk of rejection, infection or potential harm from lack of maintenance – buyer beware!
