Port Removal

Today I get my port out!!

I'm super excited because it's like saying "sayonara" to my cancer.  Hopefully for good.  The ambiguous "they" say that if it were to return, it would probably be within the next two years.  After that benchmark, it's exponentially less likely to make an appearance.

However, here are my immediate fears.

When they put the port in me, I was under.  As in, I was unconscious.  Apparently, though, it's common practice to take it out while I'm awake.  I don't know if I'll be getting anything more than a local anesthetic. Which makes me nervous, because this thing is laced up around my collarbone and then snakes down into my vein... and they're just going to cut me open a little bit and pull it out?

Doesn't your flesh usually start to attach itself to foreign objects in your body after so long?  Won't they be ripping out little pieces of my muscles and stuff too?  AM I GOING TO FEEL IT??

Ick.

I've read up on this quite a bit by now and people keep saying it's "no big deal" but it still just kind of freaks me out a little bit.

It probably doesn't help that recently Mom told me a story of a guy who she knows who had his port removed and during the procedure they accidentally nicked his vein and he almost bled out.  Apparently this is not very common, but it does happen.

I'm not afraid of bleeding out (if you haven't caught on by now, death doesn't bother me) but I do think I'd like to be unconscious if it were to happen.  That's all.

I'll let you know what happened in a few hours once it's over.