Portacath

Day 25- Monday
So I'm up at 5.20 eating toast and drinking green tea. I am a massive fan of green tea. However it appears the antioxidant effect did not work on me! Malika is sitting by the bed drawling for the toast but he eyes are shutting as it's so early! Manage to go back to sleep for a few hours.

Get some lovely texts of best wishes this morning. Keeps me positive.

Matt is allowed home from school to take me to the hospital. Very considerate of Matt's Principal. He comes home and asks if I want a cup of tea-"no darling I'm nil by mouth!"

So I arrive at American hospital and get admitted to the maternity ward! Slightly a cruel twist of fate! This is the ward I would love to be on but I'm here to have surgery to make my chemo administration easier- the same chemo that may lead to me being infertile! This is not the right ward for me! Plus side, there is a comfortable rocking chair in this room!

We settle down to watch 'X Factor'. Matt asks me if I would like a water!?!?!?! And then proceeds to eat Pringles in front of me. I am starving and that smell is not helping!

The anaesthetist comes to meet me. An English chap from Oxford. I tell him about my terrible experience last time and he agrees to avoid a general anaesthetic and other drugs that may make me ill. He admits that the cocktail of drugs I had before- the anaesthetic, the morphine and anti-sickness medication can give you a 'locked in' sensation. Exactly what I had- not in my head but a real medical side effect! He also comments on my crap veins! My 6th cannula in 25 days is inserted!
We see the lovely nurse 'C' in surgery and she says she will try to get me up on the surgical ward after the procedure.

So down I go. Get positioned with my arms tied to my side and my head has to stay rotated to the left. My face is covered by a sheet with an oxygen mask on. Sedation in. Feel sleepy but I'm not asleep like I was for the colonoscopy. I can feel pressure and pulling under my right collar bone. At one stage it starts to hurt so I call out. The next minute I feel the cold medicine coming into my cannula and the pain stops. Feels like it lasts 10 minutes but by the time they take the sheet off my head 30 minutes has passed. See my other surgical nurse 'C' in recovery. Love seeing familiar faces! Dr Salti checks my wound. He mentions cutting the final part to release the fluid next week in clinic- that does not sound like something I want to happen!

Dr Salti lets mum and Matt know I am ok. He shakes mum's hand 3 times. Nurse 'C' tells us he has read my blog and therefore he knows mum fancies him! Hilarious none of us had thought of this!

Get taken to a surgical room. Nurse 'C' is looking after me. I apparently tell her about my blog and the Australian lady we met in CT last week. I can't remember any of this and after a few hours sleep I repeat the stories again! So now I have to stay a few more hours as I am only now being 'normal'!

It's now 5 hours post procedure and it is just starting to feel a little tender. Hurts if I lift my arm above my head or reach across my body. Oh well to be expected! Covered with a little bandage so can't see but the anaesthetist thinks I had dissolvable internal stitches and steri-strips. Please don't say I had normal stitches that will need to be taken out! We all know what will happen then!

So glad this is all over. Feel like a weight has been lifted. May feel depressed in a day or two when the bandage comes off and I see the scar and potentially the lump of the portacath. But for now I feel cheery.

Back home and good to be eating dinner! Also work my way through some quality street! Weighed myself today and have lost a further 0.4kg so still allowed chocolate at this stage!

Early night tonight-looking forward to a good night's sleep. Only problem is that I have to lie flat again for a few nights!

Cast allocation- thinking I may have Ginnifer Goodwin to play me. Any other suggestions?