When I arrived at Sloan-Kettering urgent care Thursday night, a few curtains down from me, someone made the same observation about some of the little bottles they use to collect blood. “These look like little wine bottles,” she said. They do. We would all rather be having wine, wouldn’t we? Could we all forget cancer and crack open tiny bottles of wine with the nurses and all take a break from everything?
The answer is, of course, no. Sometimes I can fool myself into taking tiny breaks when I don’t worry about it anymore, and I can almost pretend I’m back to my old self.
Today, at least, I am not sleeping all day, and I haven’t had the fever-related shivers. However, it looks like my port has bacteria growing on it, so they’re thinking about taking it out. I’m a little frustrated, because I put off getting one for years only to have it get infected after three weeks. I just had a regular IV put in, and it’s always tough to put one in because of my tiny veins. On top of that, they have to stick me for a blood draw.
I thought I would be out of here in a few days once my electrolytes came back and once the infection cleared up, but that’s going to be trickier than I thought. The doctors today said they are thinking of taking the entire port out to get to the root of the infection. They would also like to do an MRI to see if a new spot is an abscess (maybe related to the infection?) or a new cancer spot. The new route seems to be possible ablation or embolization of the tumors in an effort to stop some of the symptoms that require the daily IV hydration.
As for the PRRT, which I was somewhat hopeful about, they wouldn’t be able to start that until my infection is cleared up and there is a way to give me chemo through a port or another line since my veins are all shot. I can tell from the doctors’ responses that this is off the table, for now at least.
This also seems longer than a few days’ stay, so I’m settling in a bit. I’ll know more hopefully a little later.