Portacath came out

This month another step away from being a cancer patient and back to normal life! My portacath was taken out on Thursday 7th August. Happened at the Wesley Hospital, same place where it was put in. Brisbane Private Hospital, ('my' hospital) being smaller and not having the advanced Radiology facilities to do this.

I had it done under twilight sedation, which I much prefer to full anaesthetic. Pretty simple - just half a day there. Then Lorraine came to collect me and drive me home, as I couldn't drive that day.

I think I probably had slightly under-estimated the effects this would have on me. I assumed it would be like the insertion, which was really easy. Or am I just not remembering it accurately? When I had it put in I went straight from there to the Brisbane Private Hospital, onto mabthera (rituxin), and then chemo the next morning. So there was a lot of new stuff going on!

Anyway, I was expecting a bit of pain/discomfort for a couple of days, and then nothing. So when it still hurt to touch 4-5 days after I began to wonder/worry. But having raised this on the Webmagic NHL board I heard lots of stories about discomfort/pain lasting for 2-3 months, so decided to stop worrying! After all, it'd been in there for 13 months, so it's bound to take a bit of time before it settles down.

And now it's 2 weeks since I had it removed. I've had all the stitches out and it's feeling a lot better. I don't really imagine it's going to be a problem at all ... :)