Port Placement
The words feel so strange.
I met David in a parking lot and transferred Harrison to him. Thankfully, David’s office is only a few miles from the hospital. Our oncologist tried and tried to get special permission for me to take Harrison along in because he’s breastfeeding, but it was a dead end street. He went to work with David and would come to the hospital for milk breaks.
Liam and I headed to the OR. The port placement took forEVER. At least twice as long as they’d told me it would take. My friend, Jeannine was working so we ate lunch in the cafeteria together. I ran into my cousin, Dan three times. I couldn’t believe it. In a world of no visitors, God was still bringing me people.
When Liam was finally finished they let me into the PACU. He was in excruciating pain. They hadn’t warned us about that at all.
I saw so much blood caked in his hair at the back of his head and knew by the amount of time it took, they must have had a rough time. I’d asked for a double port and they said they couldn’t do it in someone his size. It made me sad, because I knew at a sarcoma center they would have given him one and he was sure to end up needing a lot more sticks with a single lumen.
When they had a room, we wheeled up to 7C and got the nicest, enormous room at the end of the hall. I naively assumed this would be normal for chemo admissions. Had I known what was to come in the future, I’d have been so much more appreciative.
Because it was so late in the day they decided to wait to do chemo until the following day. I was so relieved. Liam had so much pain. He couldn’t even straighten his head, likely from having it cranked strangely for hours on a cold OR table. We partied with salted cashews, watermelon, and a favorite hockey movie, “Miracle.”
The staff are so in love in love with him it’s almost funny. The resident was reporting to our oncologist and Dr. R finally said, “Ok, anything medical to share?” They keep telling him he’s so cute and you can just see the twelve year old well concealed annoyance at being called cute!
These moments feel so normal and yet almost sacred. I’m trying to live right here in this moment. Tomorrow is coming. And based on what has happened so far, so will grace.