Port Removal

            I yell at the first slice, and the surgeon promptly doses me up with more local anesthetic.  Since the area is already mostly numb, the bee sting effect is muted.

            The nurse has already warned me about the pulling and tugging and pressure, so I am not surprised.  However, I cannot get the chest x-ray out of my mind.  Never--before or since the port placement under sedation just over two years ago--have I considered how long the tubing is.  Seeing it extend from the port just under my right clavicle, down the jugular vein, and past the bottom of my right lung unnerves me.  Pull and tug, pull and tug, and then pressure applied to my neck to prevent jugular bleeding.  I try to concentrate on slow, deep breathing instead of the long tubing.

            The outpatient surgery is done.  The second x-ray is taken, and I am glad to see for myself that the tubing is gone.  But I am still shaken as the nurse walks me back out to the waiting room. 

It’s like old times, proffering my arm to the familiar face at the radiology front desk to have her snip off my wristband.  I compliment her on her new (to me at least) hairstyle, and she is happy to see me.  We high-five over the port removal, and then my friend Mona and I are on our way, first to the check-out counter where I receive my six-month and one-year appointment times, then out to my car and down the highway to Owasso and lunch.

Today, two days since the event, the incision site still hurts, and I am still somewhat shaken.  Seared on my inner vision, the x-ray image of that long and snaky tubing still unnerves me.  In the effort to de-traumatize myself, I’ve thought of all kinds of wordplay to describe Monday’s procedure:  I was de-ported.  I am port-less.  I can refer to my ex-port while examining its import on my life.  Funny that the smallest and last bit of my cancer treatment experience has turned out to be traumatic after all the big and hard parts that stretched out over most of a year. 

Now I understand even more of how amazing God’s presence has been during my cancer treatment.  He gave me peace during all the truly difficult times:  diagnosis, waiting, chemotherapy, pneumonia, surgery, and radiation.  My quarterly check-ups since then have been marked by happiness to see those lovely souls I recognize: check-in staff, technicians, nurses, doctors.  Knowing that God is in control and trusting myself to His will, whatever that may entail, provides peace that banishes fear.  He will help me learn from this tiny bit of trauma, and I thank Him for extending my life.