explaining what a port is

I mentioned in my last post that I was over at the cancer center go get my port flushed. Had a commenter ask what is a port flush — which is actually a very good question because like everything else (running included — I mean think of how many non-runners can say "fartlek" without giggling — not many!) cancer has its own vocabulary.

 I guess a good place to start explaining what a port flush involves is to explain what a port is. 

Port is short for "mediport." This is me and this is my mediport — you can see a little what it looks like and where it is located on the upper part of my chest right below my collar bone.  Oh yeah, and definitely GO NAVY!  (The shirt was a gift and I love it.)  Anyway, a mediport is a vascular access device — a surgically implanted little object (mine is about the size of a dime) that resides usually in the chest on the right side to avoid driver side seat belt issues. Mine happens to be on the left because my chest masses were so large there wasn’t room on the left side.  (And yes, I do have seat belt problems sometimes from the shoulder belt rubbing against the port).  The raised slightly discolored area on my chest is the port reservoir. An attached lead runs up to the large vein in my neck. You can actually see the lead if you know where to look — it makes the vein sort of stick out more on that side of my neck.

By the way, I had this really awesome vascular surgeon implant my port.  He let me stay awake during the surgery and we talked about triathalons (he’s a triathlete, I would sink like a rock to the bottom of the ocean, so no tris for Jenny).  The whole thing felt just really weird.  It didn’t hurt very much.  Actually compared to the bone marrow biopsy my oncologist did the next day, the port surgery barely hurt at all.

This is what the port looks like accessed. (Like that rocking red sports bra?)  So now you know what a port is and what it looks like.

A port is useful for a cancer patient for three main reasons. First, it saves you from multiple needle sticks. The nurse “accesses” the port with a needle, but it is hard for them to miss, unlike with arm veins.  You should see the bruises I sport when I get CT scans.  Second, it saves your veins from the chemo itself. Chemo can actually sometimes burn your veins inside out. Finally, the port allows chemo to be given at a much faster rate. I guess you can think of it as just an easier, more efficient way of delivering poisons to tumors.

Anyway, a port can be pretty easily removed after chemotherapy is completed. I know a lot of Hodgkin’s patients get them pulled out right away given the high cure rate Hodgkin’s Disease generally boasts. Being a shot from out around half court rather than the typical slam dunk Hodgkin’s case, I still have mine and haven’t worked up the courage to ask my oncologist whether I can have it removed.

As a consequence of still having my port, every eight weeks, I have to traipse over to the cancer center and get the port flushed. A flush is about a two minute procedure where the nurse accesses the port and flushes it with some heparin to make sure it works properly and won’t form any blood clots (obviously that would be very bad). It’s really not a big deal, it just means another appointment, another trip to the doctor, another needle poke … You get the idea.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions about what I write about, I’ll try to answer them as long as they aren’t TOO personal.