Attempted portacath insertion

Hi Christel,

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear they did not succeed inserting your portacath!

I had a portacath inserted in October last year, a few days prior to my first chemo session & like Em I also found this procedure a little distressing (probably due to having that & chemo begin in the same week!). My insertion was successful however as I am also petite, mine stood out a lot! ie the lump was quite visible & the scar stretched out as it healed because it seemed to be positioned right under the incision! Despite all of this, the portacath did work very well, although because it always looked a bit purple (the colour of my port) & stretched out, the nurses & everyone who saw it would always ask me if it hurt (it never hurt) & if that's always how it looked! The nurses started accessing my port for my 2nd round of chemo onwards as it was still too raw to use for the first session. Last Friday (the day after my second last chemo session) my port became infected. The surrounding area became quite red & even a bit of puss came out of it so I took myself to emergency on Saturday afternoon & spent 4 nights in hospital being pumped with antibiotics & they pulled the plug on my final chemo session today due to this. They removed my port as well as it had managed to puncture its way through my scar while I was staying in hospital. I will still need to have Herceptin until the end of this year so they're going to attempt using my veins but have advised that I may need to get a PIC line if they struggle with my veins.

I hope they succeed the insertion the second time around Christel, all the best.

Caitlin ??