Well on Monday, March 14 John and I headed out to the hospital early in the morning to first do a PET scan and then to do a CT scan. The nice young gentleman who would do the PET scan got first shot at putting in kind of an iv port - that's what they would use to put the tracer into my body. I say he got first shot, because he couldn't find a vein. So they brought a nurse out from the hospital (oh I forgot to tell you there is a PET scan trailer that comes to the hospital once a week and parks outside the imaging center) - she got tries number 2 & 3. When she couldn't get it in, they brought another nurse out - and luckily she got it in on the first try. At that point I wasn't looking forward to anymore poking, so I had them check to make sure that I didn't need it left in for the CT scan - luckily I didn't. At some point I had asked if they could use my port, but was told that they didn't like to put the tracer through the port ?!? The PET scan was for Dr. H. Anyway we got all done there, and then went to another part of the hospital to get the CT scan - I understand that the CT scan was for Dr. Z and they would use it for some measurements to do the radiation.
On Tuesday, March 15 I had my first radiation treatment, and Dr. Z went through what we were going to do with me again. Also on that day I started the chemo - Dr. H told me that the PET scan showed the tumor - but also showed the other organs too. He told me that if the breast cancer had metastisized that it would show up in the liver and my liver looked good. We then went to "hook up" the pump. I had a couple of people tell me about some cream that would "deaden" the site at the port (thanks Amy & Kendra for the heads up.) The nurse told me that the cream was a prescription, but she thought that since we would be taking the needle out and then putting it right back in, it probably wouldn't be necessary. But she did have some spray that would deaden it. So we used that - it is very, very cold, but it made me not feel the needle go in at all. Guess I should back up a little because Dr. H was not sure that we should even use the port to begin with because of all the irritation from the tape. He told me that maybe we should do a pick line - did I know what that was Miss Cheryl? I said no I didn't and he said it was an outpatient procedure. At that point I said NO - that I had been prodded and poked so much the last couple of weeks that I couldn't wrap my head around another outpatient procedure. And could we try the port and if it didn't work then maybe we could look at Plan B. He agreed to that. So the needle went in and the pump was hooked up to be with me 24/7. It's in a little satchel that I wear over my shoulder. I had radiation treatments #2, 3 & 4 through that Friday. The next week I was noticing a little bleeding and so I would go to Dr. H's side to get cleaned up and have the tagaderm changed out intermittently. I was doing radiation treatment #9 and was on week #2 day 4 of chemo when the bleeding was really bad - so Dr. H looked me over - and he talked to the surgeon's office. Once again the surgeon that had put it in was not available - so they sent me over to see the other surgeon, Dr. D. He thought things looked fine, and so I went back to Dr. H's office to get the pump hooked back up. Dr. D also told me that he would be on call that weekend, so if it started bleeding again, to come to the ER. So on Sunday morning, Carrie, Justin & I went to the ER. Dr. D was there, as he was scheduled for some surgery, so he looked things over and decided to take the needle out - and that maybe it needed a few days to heal . . .
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