Out, Damned Port!

Upcyling oral syringes to make Pollock-esque masterpieces. Art > Cancer

Hi there. It’s been a loooong time since I posted. The fact is, I’m feeling a little bit adrift as to what I want to blog about these days, and how I want to use this space now that the most intense and perilous  phase of our family’s cancer journey crappy little boat trip has come to a close (knock on wood).

In the months before Clio was diagnosed, I’d started feeling meh about blogging, and unhappy about the direction Babble, where I was blogging at that time, was heading.

Then, enter a Big Bad Life Event, and suddenly I was clinging to blogging like a life raft (I sure do like these boat metaphors, don’t I….) using it as a form of therapy and a source of support, while also maybe, I vaguely hoped, contributing something to the world. In that first year, I felt compelled to blog. But now…not so much. There are fewer stumbling blocks and milestones. Life is much more about just life. 

Meanwhile, after two years of putting attempts at a new novel on hold, I’m able to start that crazy climb again. (Mountains, marathons and drives at night in the fog seem better metaphors for book-writing than nautical excursions do). So I’m inclined to put my writing energy — and the precious few hours I have for non-work writing — there.

Anyway. I’m just musing here. Not declaring an end to blogging. Just acknowledging that my relationship with it is shifting yet again, and I’m not sure where it’s headed.

But enough about that. Let’s talk about Clio’s port removal. Woo-hoo! She no longer has a little piece of metal and plastic inside her chest, channeling blood and chemo, rudely collecting blood clots, and whatnot. We don’t have to panic when she gets a fever, because it might be an infection in her line. We don’t have to put a dab of Emla on her chest, covered with Press-n-Seal, before we head to the clinic to numb the area. (On the downside, when she goes for checkups now, she has to get blood drawn from her arm, which is no fun.)

We planned the procedure for after she got home from her week at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, so she wouldn’t have to sit out swimming. (You’re supposed to stay out of the water for 10 days after the procedure.) She had a fantastic time. I was worried about her getting homesick, but if she was, we didn’t hear about it. She won the wood shop award, because she was such a frequent visitor there (the girl loves building stuff), rode a horse, narrated a skit in front of the whole camp, and laid down some awesome tracks in the recording studio — among other things. Here she is on her first day:

Two days after she got home. we headed for the hospital. Usually port removals are done right at the Jimmy Fund Clinic — it’s a quick, simple procedure, just takes an hour, if that — but because of concerns about Clio’s blood clot, and because we’re nervous nellies on that topic (thanks to the nervous hematologists), it was done over in the OR at Children’s Hospital.

This made it seem like a bigger deal than it was, just because the place is so busy with patients and parents and doctors and nurses. (Aside about the blood clot: Clio once asked me, “Can I still have a baby even though I have a clot?” Damned near broke my heart.) While we waited in pre-op, Clio was in good spirits:

She also donned  a cute kids’ hospital gown for what I hope will be the last time. And scored some schwag. (We played Candyland, too. She kicked my ass, as usual.)

Here’s the port — a teeny little thing, really, but it accomplished so much. And was so menacing at the same time.

I expected to feel emotional about the whole thing. Or have the sort of wavering, flashback moments I’ve had in the past when we’ve had to go to Children’s for tests and procedures. I thought being in an operating environment might be particularly unpleasant. Having the port put in was so, so awful. I was still a complete mess at that point, in total shock, and having to watch her go under anesthesia and wait while they operated was excruciating.

But I didn’t feel any of that when the port came out. It was more a sense of relief. In fact, as I left the OR after Clio was asleep, I tore off the mask and cap and gown I’d had to wear and chucked them into the trash and thought: Good fucking riddance. Now get me the hell out of here.

It’s awfully nice not to have a medical device inside your baby anymore. Just a little scar in the middle of her chest, which I hope won’t bother her too much when she’s a middle schooler, changing in the locker room  for gym class for the first time, or a teenager trying on prom dresses with her friends. Actually, I think it’s more likely she’ll be one of those kids who thinks the prom is lame and goes skinny dipping and hangs out around a campfire with her friends instead, and doesn’t give a crap what anyone thinks about her scar. She’ll wear it like a warrior.