The last few days I’ve been having more swelling and pain in my neck. The stitch is still in holding the tube from my port which is what I thought the pain was attributed to. Turns out I was wrong.
Yesterday was a series of events that happened so quickly that by the end of it I was exhausted and upset 🙁
First they had to plug into my port, without a local anesthetic (very painful)
They tried to push saline and to take blood from my port but it wasn’t letting them pull blood from it
They called Parkside Hospital and spoke to the radiologist who put the port in and he said to come over for an ultrasound to see if the line was leaking into the surrounding tissue and causing the swelling
I drove over and had the ultrasound which showed the tissue was inflamed, so then he did a lineogram (an xray with contrast fluid injected into my port) to see if the port is leaking
As I was laying there my doctor tried to pull blood through my port, only this time (found out a bit later) he pulled so hard that he sucked the wall of my heart. It caused a vasovagal response where my heart did a funny beat thing, my head went funny and I started hyperventilating and then almost passed out. I can tell you it was very, very scary. He said he’d never seen that happen before! But somehow what he did he unblocked the line and fluids were coming in and out just fine. But it didn’t answer the question of why the tissue was/is inflamed.
So I went back to the Cancer Centre and the doctor there said she thinks the line from my port is too close to my heart, causing my fainting last week and some heart palpitations I’ve been having when I lay down. They are going to keep an eye on it and if it continues or gets worse then I have to have surgery to adjust the line.
My bloods came back and they were low. ‘Okay low’ but very low so I wouldn’t be able to fight off an infection if my neck is actually infected. They decided to put two syringes of antibiotics into me and send me home with a box to take for the next week.
The doctor told me that she called the third floor of Parkside and let them know what was going on in case I called later, spiking a temperature or something. They said I should stay overnight and be monitored but she knew I wouldn’t like that and declined.
The third floor is Elliott and my worst nightmare. It’s where, as a chemo patient, they send you if you have any issues during chemo. Basically they keep you there and who knows when you’ll get to leave. I CANNOT END UP ON THE THIRD FLOOR. I see it as the ultimate failure in this journey.
So now my neck hurts pretty bad, but my temperature is fine so we’re just waiting to see what happens and praying it gets better….
And I thought chemo would be the worst part of this process!!

Feeling: Tired