With an extra week between treatments with changing drugs last month I find myself growing hair and eyebrows for the first time since I lost them back in the late winter. The peach fuzz on my bald head looks whiter than the hair I lost. It’s expected it will all fall out with the new drug, it may just take more time. It’s an odd sensation to have hair growing in.
Port installation left me feeling like I'd been kicked by a horse in my upper chest. This lasted for over three weeks. I guess there's something to be said for having the surgery before your blood work goes in the tank. The bruising was impressive but no infection or problems healing, it just seemed slow to me because I was in pain.
What they didn’t tell me about the port before installation included that it’s not used in the clinic for the pre-chemo blood draws. I did find out it's not used for CT contrast by asking at my last CT. The port is used for chemo or as an inpatient or under nurse supervision. And they don’t tell you it hurts to access, more than most blood draws for me though that varies. The good thing is that it’s 100% success rate for the chemo where nurses were taking 2-4 tries to find a peripheral vein. And this drug requires a port, it's not done in a peripheral vein for safety reasons.
Moral of the story: ask lots of questions.
