Living in Faith

It’s been a little while since my last post – sorry about that! I have done more between round 4 and 5 of chemo than I have since I was diagnosed. On the same day of chemo treatment number 4 Tyler and I  flew to Missouri for five days Tyler’s best friends wedding. (click here to see pictures from wedding) Then Christmas (Christmas pictures) was 3 days later. It was pretty mellow. We had our neighbors from across the street come over for a late breakfast and the kiddos got to play with Rachel’s many, many new toys. Then the following Sunday night we decided last minute to go on Monday morning up to Strawberry, AZ to take Rachel sledding (sledding pictures). That was a so much fun! It was Tyler, me, Rachel, Cindie (Tyler’s mom), and Austin (Tyler’s brother). We rented a cabin and went sledding on Monday and Tuesday. Then yesterday I had chemo. Which was…crappy (sorry that is the nicest way I can think to describe yesterday’s chemo. I had an early appointment and figured I would be out of the doctor’s office by 1:00 at the latest and boy was I wrong! My appointment with Dr. Polowy went fine but then when I went to the chemo room I ran into a problem. The nurse was accessing my port or t least trying to and that’s when the problems began. She tried once and couln’t get it so she tried again and the next thing I know I have saline spraying out of the tiny hole in my surgery incision that hasn’t healed yet. It literally sprayed the guy in the recliner next to me!! You should have seen the nurses face! It scared the crap out of her (her words). So the nurse called over another nurse and that one said that she thought my port flipped over. I never knew it could flip over!! It thought it was attached to muscle or skin or something but apparently it just floats around in my chest and since I am well endowed it makes it easier for it to flip over. After trying to access my port four times the nurses sent me for a chest x-ray to determine if was for sure flipped over. An hour and a half later we found out that the radiologist couldn’t determine from the x-ray if it was flipped or not so my chemo nurses sent me back to radiology to have them access it under fluoroscopy. Well the radiology nurse accessed it her first time but could not get a blood flash. A blood flash it when they try to suck out a little blood with a syringe to make sure that the port is functioning properly. Since she couldn’t get a blood flash they took me back for a dye test. For the dye test the radiology tech inserts dye into my port and watches on a monitor to ensure that it is functioning properly. Then the test is looked over by the radiologist. Since they determined that the port was functioning properly they sent me back down for my chemo. Finally. The nurses hooked me up to me up for my chemo and had my nausea meds in, one of my push chemo meds, and had started on my second push med (the red devil) when another nurse came in and said “Stop her chemo now! There is a problem with her port.” Here came my tears for the second or maybe third time that day. I guess the radiologist had called and said that the tube leading from my port into the vein appeared to be coming out of the vein and there is a kink in the tube. None of this is good news. Before trying to start an IV in my arm to finish the chemo Dr. Polowy talked with the radiologist and determined that it would be okay to finish todays chemo using my port but that my surgeon needed to review the tests and basically fix my port. My chemo resumed and they completed the red devil drug, then completed the first IV drug, after starting my last chemo drug (which takes an hour to go in) I looked up about 20 minutes into it running and noticed the small saline bag looked like it was about to explode. The nurse had started the pump and forgot to take the clamp off the line and all the meds were backing up into the saline bag! This made the hour long drug now take almost 2 hours!  So needless to say I had a very long day at the hospital. I thought I would be done at 1:00 the latest and we walked out of the office at 5:00! Ugh!

So now I am looking at another surgery. Something I am definitely not looking forward to. I will be honest and say that I really, really do not want to have another surgery. I knew that at some point once the cancer was gone that I would have my port removed which would require surgery but I didn’t expect to have to have another surgery during chemo. It is bad enough that I have to have a spinal tap done this month and now I probably need another surgery. I am ready to fast forward to the end of my cancer that is for sure. Because there is a kink in the tube of my port and it appears to be slowing working it’s way out of my vein there is a very likely chance that it will have to be replaced completely. Again this is something I am not looking forward to.

Yesterday was a unique day to say the least. Nothing seemed to go right but I guess it was one way to make the last day of 2008 memorable. Oh! to top it off I was going to bed last night as Tyler was at our neighbors house when I noticed our ceiling fan was on high and hanging only by the wires not the poll. So I called Tyler and he, Austin, and our neighbor Gilbert came rushing over and spent the next 20 or 30 minutes fixing it that is what the picture below is! 

Never a dull moment with the Eeds family! I hope you all had a great holiday and the year is starting off right for you!