OK, God! I GET IT!!!

     God has a weird sense of humor!!!

 

     I knew that getting a port to make all the chemo infusions easier was the right thing to do. I just REALLY didn't want to do it!  After all, I was finally feeling pretty good!  My thyroid incision and my lumpectomy were healing nicely and I just didn't want to deal with any more pain.

 

God thought differently!

 

He definitely showed me that He knows best...do the RIGHT thing and get a port!

 

     I have had signs that the port was the right thing to do. The day that I had my lumpectomy and the right half of my thyroid removed, I received the first sign, even though I didn't yet realize it was a sign.

     I have great veins!  That's one of the benefits of getting older. The nurses can actually SEE my veins when they draw blood so blood draws have always been a snap.

 

     On lumpectomy/thyroid surgery day, my nurse Patty was being shadowed by a "float", (sort of like a student teacher in "teacher terms"). The float...I won't say her name, I'll just call her Ms. Float...was going to put the IV in.  I have always watched the nurse insert IV's because I am sort of fascinated by the process (WIERD, I know!!!). Poke and magically blood appears! 

 

Ms. Float chose an unconventional spot on my arm to put the IV in but I figured she knew what she was doing and I didn't say anything.  I watched her poke, wiggle the needle, pull back a bit, wiggle the needle, push in, wiggle the needle, and all the while she's saying, "It's right there!  It's right there. I can feel it. It's right there!"  YOWWWIE! 

 

Soon the room started getting very warm and my stomach started feeling not so great so I lowered my bed (I used to faint a lot so I knew to get my head down). By then, Nurse Patty had a very concerned look because she thought I was going to loose my lunch, even though I had not eaten in the last 10 hours.

 

Finally, I said that I thought we needed to "try something else"...Like "LET PATTY DO IT!!!" (Thought that...didn't say it though!) Ms. Float finally stopped trying! Nurse Patty had the IV in and going in about 25 seconds without any pain involved! I should have recognized that fiasco as a sign...a BIG sign!

 

     Last Thursday, I went to the same place to get my port put in as where I had my lumpectomy/thyroid surgeries. First thing I did was check for Ms. Float! Hurray! She's not there so I'm feeling confident that today's IV insertion will go better!!! 

 

     Nurse Kathy gets me situated lying in bed and begins the IV insertion process. Again, I sit there and watch as she finds a vein on the first try but then says the IV is "positional". I had no idea what that meant until she kept lifting the IV higher and higher until it was at a right angle to my hand! That was the only way she could get the IV saline solution to drip into my hand! 

 

Again, my bed went down, down, down until my head was low enough to get some blood back into it. GEEZ!!!

 

Of course, that right angled IV is not going to work! Since that IV is my lifeline to the drugs that will put me into lala land come time for surgery, I needed that IV to work!!!!!!!!!!  Sooooo, pull it out and start all over in a new spot AGAIN!!!  

 

AARGH! 

 

This time the IV worked. THANK GOD! Speaking of GOD, Nurse Kathy says to me, "Yup, and that's why you need to have a port!" Right then and there is when I decided God has a weird sense of humor!  Yes, God, I got the message loud and clear...GET THE PORT!

 

     Yup! I got the port.

 

People lied! They said the port isn't bad...not a big deal! I must be a wuss because it did hurt and it was a big enough deal for me. It caused me to have to sleep in the recliner for four nights again because now I can't sleep on either side now!!!!

 

     I think God had been whispering in those people's ear, telling them to say, "Getting a port isn't bad." I sure God is chuckling...not that He wants me to suffer...but that He did convince me to get that darn port!