I had a bit of a crazy week

I'm not sure if anyone else has had an experience like this, so I thought I would share.

This past Monday I had about 20 minutes of what felt like something crawling around in my chest. I've had PVCs before (your heart beats a little out of sequence or something, feels like it skips a beat) and I thought it was probably that. I've never had one that lasted that long, or one that gave me tunnel vision for that matter, so off to the emergency I go. 3 hours later and they have done a couple ECGs on me and taken some blood. The Dr figures my heartbeat looks a little off, but he sends me on my way.

On Wednesday, I go in for my monthly port flush. For background, I'm a stage 4 survivor and I've been NED for just over 2 years now. I haven't been using my port for anything, but you still have to maintain the thing. ANYWAY, I go in to get my port flushed and they inject the saline no problem. The problem starts when they try to draw back and no blood comes out. Great! looks like my port is plugged again (this would be the second time) But this is something I've had to deal with before. No prob! So they inject the "Vein Draino" to try to break up wherever the plug may be. Well an hour and a half later it still doesn't work any better so now I have to come back the next day to get a chest X-Ray to see where things are clogged up.

Thursday morning I'm back at the hospital and check in, get my X-Ray done, all good. I make my way back over to the cancer center and the Dr who ordered the X-Ray is waiting for me to arrive. WooHoo, no waiting!

The first thing the Dr says to me is; "So... you're not experiencing any.... chest pain?" Which I have to be honest, sounds like a bit of a leading question.

Well, as it turns out, my port is in fact not plugged! The catheter line on my port (which is in my upper arm) has snapped off just under my armpit and the catheter is now coiled up in my heart. What felt like something crawling around in my chest was actually the port line moving around in my heart and lungs. For those of you who are wondering if that might perhaps be a bad idea, why yes! Yes it is! I guess that usually causes pulmonary embolism, heart attack, blood clots, death... that sort of thing.

Well damn.

I guess that must be fairly serious, because the Dr escorted me right back over to the hospital, straight into a gown, and right onto a table to have the line surgically removed. Talk about good service! They actually went in through the big vein in the groin to get to the heart, which to me sounds a little like rectal dentistry, but I guess that is the easy route for that. (or as I jokingly told my wife, as it turns out the way to a man's heart is apparently through the groin. I found that WAY funnier than she did) As it turns out, when everything works right it is a quick and easy process to snare the offending line and pull it out. Taking the port itself out was equally quick and easy, but I still have to get the stitches removed.

So at the end of the day, I no longer have my port! And I have another interesting story to tell. I've been telling my friends that I'm now on the immortality training program. All you have to do is a bunch of things that half kill you so you gradually build up an immunity. So far its working great!

Has anyone else had any trouble with their port? I'm thinking I can't be the only one who has had one of these break off.

Hope you all have an excellent day!

Thomas