Chemo

Hey @ShellElle - I can't speak for myself,  but I can talk a bit about my wife's experience. She's a Clinical Nurse who is currently undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy with the same drugs as you've mentioned, although she's on a dose dense regime which means she has AC every 2 weeks instead of every 3. Her goal when she started this journey was to get back to work ASAP and so she had to consider whether to use her veins, go for a PICC line or just get a port - if she wanted to return to work a PICC line wouldn't cut it as it would expose her to injury if a patient pulled it or something, so she chose to try her vein for the first round.

Unfortunately it turns out that her veins are very thin and quite deep so the Oncology team had a really hard time getting the cannula in and caused quite a lot of pain and bruising and also ended up suggested getting a port. Anyway, we talked about it to our coordinator and she said it would be for the best, so we ended up going private and having a power port inserted. Sadly we couldn't get in for that procedure before her second treatment, so she had to endure another cannulation and it was even harder than the first time, so much so that it was the first time I'd seen her cry during any of the treatment. Luckily enough we got the port put in just in time for her 3rd round (literally the day before) and it was an absolute game changer. Getting the port wasn't anywhere near as difficult as we thought it'd be and she pulled through that procedure really well and has now just completed her 4th round with minimal pain and fuss. It was almost too easy compared to the first few rounds.

I'm not an expert and of course I don't know your financial or personal circumstances, but I can tell you that getting a port has been one of the best decisions we've made so far and I would encourage you to not rule it out without at least exploring the option.

All the best to you and your family as you navigate this journey - please remember that you're not alone ❤️