July 5, 2009 OMG!

Yes, oh my God! I had two surprises over the last few days, one good and one, well; I’ll let you decide on the second one.

Wednesday was much like the days have been lately, not too exciting. Then the now familiar knock on the door late in the afternoon. All of a sudden my day had become exciting. Once again, I received a package from Greater’s. This time it was 12 different flavors. I about fell over. We had to throw away some vegetables from the freezer (another good thing.) Jim Sibert, the only person that I knew from Abbott longer than Terry had decided to make my day.

Jim was my first boss at Abbott and has always kidded me about being “ugly.” Of course, we all know that is nonsensical but that is how I knew who sent the gift. No signature, just some reference to me being ugly. With friends like this…..

My surprise on Thursday was not quite as much fun, but certainly as exciting. Thursday was my big day for getting the port out. For five weeks I had been the bionic man, but I was ready to live without this swell device in my jugular vein. I had fasted all morning like I had been reminded the previous day in a telephone call. The only drawback to getting this thing out was that I would have to get another IV, probably in my hand. Of course, they would have to put me out just like they did when they put it in. Or so I thought.

My blood draw at 9:30 went quickly so I was able to get down to the out patient area early. After getting checked in, I was ready to get this over with. If you remember, when they put it in I was a nervous wreck. Since I knew what was coming this time, I was as calm as could be, just wanting to get it done.

They called my name and I was led back to the same, pre-op area that I had gone to the first time. As I was led into the little curtained room, the nurse said that Lisa would be in shortly to take the port out. At that point, I realized that someone was missing an important step. What happen to the going to sleep? All of a sudden, my not so nervous feeling turned to panic.

They could not be serious. They were going to have me in the same room as the removal process. I was much happier when I was going to be sleeping when this took place. Soon Lisa came in with an assortment of tools. I mentioned in a quivering voice, “Gee, I thought I would be put out for this.”

She assured me that this was no big deal and it would be done in a matter of minutes. Easy for her to say. It wasn’t her jugular vein involved. She was kind enough to offer me a slight sedative in the form of a pill. I wasn’t going to do it, but if it would just make me a little less aware, I was all for it. Of course, it was worthless. I was just as awake as if I was watching a ball game.

After several shots of a numbing agent in the area affected, she started pulling on the port. In my mind it took several hours, but in all likelihood she was done in under 60 seconds. Somehow, I had survived the procedure. Ten minutes later I was on my feet and we were walking out the door.