The Chemo Port & Hair Cut

Looking back over my blog now I see I left out a couple of things that have happened.

At the end of April I had another surgery to implant a port to receive chemo infusions.  The port is just below my breast bone on the right side.  It's about an inch long in the shape of a triangle and has a tube that goes up into a vein in my neck, then loops down toward my heart.  This is done so the nurses don't have to struggle trying to find veins in a person's hand each time.  My veins like to jump around and can be hard to stick into so this was absolutely a good move for me.  A special needle called a huber needle is used to access the port.  The needle is curved and sort of juts out from the port when it's used.  I was totally freaked out the first time it was used because I was still really bruised and sore from surgery.  Now it's a piece of cake because I put lidocaine on the area to numb it beforehand.  The nurse counts to 3 and has me take a deep breath in when she inserts the needle.  When she takes it out I have to wear a band aid for awhile.  I will get the port removed when I'm done with everything, athough Dr. Jordan said I don't have.  There are some more scars, the most maddening of which is from the surgery dressing tape that I asked them not to use.  One corner pulled up a huge area of skin.  I think the surgery for getting the port was worse than the 2 breast surgeries.  The anesthesia was different and gave me an awful headache and stomach ache for days, plus the pain in the area was worse.  It's OK now and I'm glad I did it.

I can't remember if I blogged that I'd also cut my hair down to about 1 inch long right before the port surgery.  It wasn't scary once I decided to do it.  The only part that was hard was not looking at it all on the floor once it was cut off.  Boy, it grew fast though and had already grown out quite a bit during the last month.  I could actually get my hand around some of it.  But I started getting handfuls coming out every time I washed it or tried to style it.  After a couple of showers where I couldn't get it to stop coming out during the rinse, I decided it wouldn't get any better and opted for the buzz.  Hopefully it will just get thin and not fall all out all the way.  We'll have to see about that!  If it does, it will only be for a couple more months and the time is perfect while the weather will be getting hot.  Last  night my head got cold during the night though.  Having had long hair most of my life THAT was a weird feeling!  No wigs for this kid.  It would just be too stifling for me.  I'll be much happier in a ball cap or some other cute hat that I've yet to find.

Later alligator!