Port Placement & Chemo Day 1

Thursday, July 18th, 2019:

Busy week…

On Tuesday, July 16, Fred started off the day with a visit to his regular GP doctor to discuss his lingering pneumonia symptoms and GI issues and see if he was healthy enough to get his port placed in a few hours. Pretty much the medical opinion during that visit was, “Probably… You will probably fine during the procedure” …And in regards the lingering symptoms, “Let’s do nothing and see what happens.” The thought was that starting a new treatment plan for those issues would interfere with starting chemo in 2 days. The doctor thinks that 2 rounds of antibiotics should have killed any infections, so the lingering symptoms might go away on their own, or be related to the cancer and get better with chemo. So we’ll just wait and see if these issues get better or worse.

A few hours later, we headed downtown to the hospital for the port placement procedure. We had that done at Sutter Interventional Radiology on L Street. That place is so awesome. The staff was incredibly friendly and compassionate. The procedure went very smoothly. Fred really enjoyed himself there. Fred’s nurse Cheree walked him through the whole thing…

She shaved Fred’s chest in lovely checkerboard pattern…

And made sure he had plenty of recovery snacks afterward.

We discovered that the supplimental oxygen Fred received during the procedure really helped his breathing and seemed to suppress his cough. He really felt great after his procedure.

That night, I checked out his 1/2 hairless chest, that was still dyed blue from the disenfectant soap. I told him he looked like he had been to a wild frat party and was the 1st on to pass out.

Two days later, on July 18th, we had the opportunity to test out the new port. We made our way down to the Infusion Center at Sutter Hospital around 11am and settled in for the next 4.5 hours.

This Infusion Center is so much nicer than the center we went to last time. Sutter has private infusion rooms and takes infection prevention super seriously. We were very impressed with their professionalism, cleanliness, and overall cheerfulness.

The time went by faster than I anticipated. They even provided lunch and snacks for us. Fred had one of his favorites…PB&J. That made him pretty happy.

Fred napped most of the afternoon away. He is so amazingly talented at napping anywhere, under any condition!

He was starting to cough and experience shortness of breath, like he does a few times a day. So we tested our theory to see if supplimental oxygen would help him. We tried it out, and instantly he stopped coughing and weezing. It was like magic. His O2 saturation still never topped 95% but he felt so much better and had color in his face again.

I watched the movie Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse. I sneak in my SCI-FI and my cartoons when Fred’s not looking👍😁 He’s not really a fan.

After we finished with the infusion bags, Fred got the chemo pump attached. He is not looking forward to dragging this giant fanny-pack and pump around for the next 48 hours.

They sent us home with the chemo hazmat spill kit. Apparently, chemo juice is incredibly hazardous. It’s scary to think your cruising around with something so dangerous resting on your lap. You’d think they sould give us a hazmat placard for the Jeep!

It’s been a few hours now and so far he feels pretty good. Fingers crossed, it will continue to be this good!!🤞We’ll keep you posted.