"That Girl"

I think Karma has been spying on me, waiting for me to take something for granted. Life was just going too smoothly apparently, and I had begun to get too comfortable with the way things were going. Silly, silly me, I know better than that, I do. So, Karma threw a nice, shiny wrench into my regularly scheduled program. What's that you say? Oh, right, Karma's a bitch...

So, on Friday, I had my "normal" (<--- ahhh, I love my version of normal these days) Herceptin treatment. I was looking forward to seeing my friend Kate and catching up. I was called back to have my port accessed and the fun began. In order for me to recieve any type of treatment, my blood must first be tested. The nurse got me hooked up and did my heparin flush. No blood return. Oh crap... not today, please not today was all I could think (frantically). She had me move into several different positions, I guess I would call it chemo yoga :). Still nothing. She took me back to the chemo lounge and had me lay down. And nothing. At this point I was starting to get a little concerened. The nurse decided to take the blood from my arm (I just love having IV's, don't you?). Luckily, my veins cooperated and off to the lab went my blood. After having my treatment approved, I mentioned to the chemo nurse that my port wasn't working. She seemed annoyed (trust me lady, no one was more annoyed then me! And really, like I wanted my port to misbehave...) and said that I would have to have a drug called TPA (think Draino for ports). That's all well and good, but the drug has to sit in my port for 30 minutes and then they have to try and access it again. I did start to panic then because I was on a time crunch, needing to get home so my nanny could leave. Ugh, I was so frustrated! Anyway, by this point I was the center of attention in the chemo lounge with half of the staff trying to figure out what to do. I really don't like being the center of attention. I'm used to being the one in the chemo lounge casually observing everyone else's drama. Ultimately, we decided to have another IV placed in my arm so I could recieve treatment and then have the TPA injected into my port to save time. Normally an IV stick isn't a huge deal, but I can only have IVs in my left arm. I had lymph nodes removed in my right arm during my mastectomy, therefore, any needle sticks or blood pressure to that arm significantly raise the risk of lymphodema. I definitely don't want to deal with that! So, another needle stick later, I finally started my Herceptin. Kate stuck around to keep me company which was really sweet of her. That, and she was getting a kick out of me being the one with drama instead of her (her port has issues fairly often).

After my 30 minutes, my favorite nurse came by and decided she would be the one to work on my port, yay! She gave it a good 20 minutes, had me do more chemo yoga and that damn port still wouldn't work. Sigh... luckily they let me go home and said we'll worry about it next time. Something to look forward to (<--- extreme sarcasm here). Keep your fingers crossed for me that my port cooperates because I really, really don't want to have another surgery just to have that silly thing replaced. So, thanks Karma, for the nice little reality check. I had almost forgotten that I had cancer at one point...