Health Update #2: Port Installed


Flowers from colleagues. They're the best.

Yesterday (April 3rd), my neighbor Tim drove me to Spectrum Hospital in Big Rapids to have an infusion port and catheter implanted on the left side of my chest by Dr. Rausch to be used for sessions over the next year for chemotherapy and immunotherapy.


 I asked if he could place the port near my USB tattoo, but no dice.



I felt a bit groggy afterwards. 

Tim dropped me off at home and my friend Cornelia arrived shortly afterward to make sure that I handled the procedure ok and made pierogi for dinner. I slept through the night, but now ache on both sides. 



After taking hydrocodone and using an ice pack over the port, I feel a bit better and slept through the night


 Moonrise over Emerson


  Another Sunrise over Emerson


Cornelia as first helpful visitor got to be first to sign the guest book.


Talked to Paige W, Reed City Oncology Social Worker today about resources through the Reed City Cancer center for emotional and legal support. She's to leave a packet for me at my next meeting in Reed City on Friday, April 7th, with Dr. Hansen.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear Diary: I’m not dead yet

Image
Reverse chronology entries — newest first October 24, 2014 Thursday Oak Park, Illinois The Apartment Sorry, I intended to update daily, but that hasn't worked out. I'm not dead yet. I am settling in at home in Oak Park over a long week. It’s been a huge adjustment and I’ve had a lot of help. Hospice sent me home by ambulance and Corrine’s sisters Cate and Chris were waiting having set up the hospital bed and supporting equipment. I've had a crew of friends come by to offer me solace and support and encouragement. My bed is in the living room and can be turned to face the windows so that I can face the Chicago skyline or my guests or another way that faces the television.  The Hospice folks provided a Hoyer Deluxe Electric Patient Lift  and high back wheelchair and all the pads and gloves and other paraphernalia, plus various drugs and other medical supplies.  Today, Corrine transferred me into the wheelchair so that we could bring in a hair stylist to cut my hair. A Certi...
Read more

Health Update #35: Brass Tacks

Image
------------------------------------ Physical Exam (08/30/2024) Constitutional:  General: He is not in acute distress. Appearance: Normal appearance. He is not ill-appearing.  ---------------------------------- Let us get down to brass tacks. The origin of that phrase is unclear, but most likely can be traced back to the turn-of-the-19th-Century in the American South. Some argue that it was coined by British military during World War I. But usage in a local Texas newspaper article in 1904 dispels that idea. Others claim it alludes to tacks hammered into a sales counter to signify the trueness of the cut of fabric, or maybe even the brass tacks associated with fine furniture to mean finishing touch.  In a tangentially related article on lexicography, Anatoly Liberman uses the idiom "copasetic" as an example of idioms of unknown origin: "the earliest citation of copasetic in the Oxford English Dictionary goes back to 1919, and it first appeared in a dictionary in 193...
Read more

Hospice Care

(10/05/2024) Hospice care has officially commenced, but still in very early stages. I won't need oxygen for a while now, but have tanks at the bedside on the ready. It's a beautiful Saturday morning with Pops and Corrine. Sunny and mild fall weather in Oak Park, IL looking out at the Chicago skyline. *10/08/2024 CORRECTION*: I had written that "Palliative care has officially commenced" on Saturday (10/5/2024) but meant to write "hospice care has officially commenced". There's not a significant difference between the two in the early stages -- you sign on a dotted line for hospice so that nurses and aids come to the apartment and set up at-home services for pain management and other forms of comfort care and they are on a loose schedule to show up once or twice a week to check in and provide tools for comfort. Different patients need different levels of support. They get paid through hospice services for all of this and care is routed through hospice rath...
Read more