Port-a-cath day 2

Hi guys!

Thought I would give a little update.. I am now 2 days post op from my port insertion . Still pretty sore and bruised. I changed the dressing last night and was pretty shocked by the size of the cut (see below) so not surprised it's sore!

I decided that I wasn't feeling up to work so let them know I'll be back on Monday. I feel quite bad as I did say I'd be back the day after! (doctors said no to that straight away!) I know I shouldn't worry about work, but I always do. I couldn't afford to lose my job.

I was awoken by my Rheumatologists secretary calling to say that now the port is in, he's requested my notes to make an appointment to get the ball rolling. I kind of grunted being half asleep! Everytime my husband has moved the last two nights I've been wide awake on the guard in case he moves and hits my chest, so it's been a very disturbed couple of nights.. knackered!! 

Its just as well I didn't go to work, as the senior sister of the Intermediate Car Team called and said she would pop by and drop off my box of supplies for the port and to go through a few things. Great, finally started to not worry about it as she knew what to do!
She came over and she was truly lovely, she had someone shadowing her too. We went through my background/health problems etc and she went through a bit about what they do. She said the port would need flushing with heparin every month if not being used so she will sort out a repeat prescription from my GP for that. They also cleaned and changed my dressing for me :)

My box of "goodies" she brought had a bunch of stuff in, all to keep here. She did get out all of the stuff to access percy port once (pic below) and said to put that in a sandwich box and carry with me as an "emergency" box. There is a lot to remember, but I'm sure it'll become second nature with time.

I will be taught how to access the port myself as apparently paramedics and some hospital nurses/doctors wouldn't feel comfortable doing it, so I need to be able to do it if needs must. They have a service from 8am-9pm so will always try to help between those hours but once I'm trained at least out of hours is covered too.

Below are a couple of pics... First is the cuts (you can't really see the port much here) and also all of the equipment I will need to access my port once

Bye for now!!

T x