Another Day, Another ...

Deb didn’t have the greatest of weeks since the last time a Monday rolled around.  Oh, it could have been a lot worse, but it wasn’t exactly all rose petals and bon-bons.  The chemotherapy itself wasn’t really to blame.  At least not directly.  No, the most difficulty has come from the port.

For those who might not be familiar with exactly what a port is and does, I’ll try to keep it brief.  It is basically just a nice convenient place for the insertion of an IV needle for when you are going to have to have that done a lot over a period of time.  It’s a small piece of plastic and silicone about one inch in diameter and a half-inch thick that’s placed a few inches below your clavicle (or in your arm, or somewhere else entirely) just below the skin.  It’s connected to a tube that goes straight into the nearest vein, which in Deb’s case is the sub-clavian vein.

I don’t think that the port itself is the problem, though it is darned inconvenient.  No, the trouble is mostly that while Deb was mentally prepared for the pain of the double mastectomy, she didn’t prepare herself for the pain associated with the surgery to have the port installed.  And, it seems, it is stretching skin in an area that was already feeling tight post-surgery.  It’s like insult added to injury (“I broke your arm in three places and, oh yeah, you’re so stupid you think Meow Mix is an iPod playlist for cats….”).

But I think it’s getting better.  Deb took a few of the prescription meds they gave her for the first few days, but she’s only been taking Tylenol for the last several days.

And, for those who’ve asked, her stamina, while it took a back-step after the port went in, is starting to improve again.  We managed a short walk around the block yesterday during the half-hour when the sun was actually out.

But today it is Chemo Day again.  We got up early to go get the caps and the dry ice (big ‘Thanks’ to JJ at PraxAir for all of his help) and then grabbed breakfast at The Wandering Goose up on Capitol Hill, followed by a couple of hours doing some laptop time at the Roy Street Coffee House.  Now we are back at the infusion center getting geared up with the caps and the infusion of Deb’s first run of chemo drugs.  The first cap change-over is complete and the Herceptin has started.  That will go for 30 minutes and then the Taxol will begin and our true time clock with the caps gets going.  I just hope it doesn’t take us as long to get home this week as it did last week.   Really don’t want to have to change the cap out more than once along the way.