Today, they're "installing" (such a clinical term) a "port" in my chest, so that it's easier to administer the chemo, and sending me one step further down my path to becoming a cybernetic organism. After a few hours laying on a bed in a prep room watching old 70s anime, Vidal, a big orderly wearing a Yankees headscarf, wheels me into the operating suite.
I'm making it a point today to remember the name of everybody I meet, partially out of kind politeness, and partially because I'm nervous, and when I'm nervous I talk too much, and reciting their names gives me something to do with my mouth.
After they get me situated in the operating suite amidst the machines that will begin my transformation to cyborg, right before I start to go under the anesthesia, James comes up to me in his surgical scrubs and asks me to turn my head, saying "Lauren is nicer to look at anyway."
My mother in law had a port during her treatment. When I first heard about it I thought of the Dune movie ("heartburns" were *not* in the book: why do movies insist on doing that sort of thing?!) but she took it so in stride that it doesn't seem odd now. But then, I've never had one so I can't imagine.
ReplyDeleteIt's odd, conceptually, if in no other way. It feeds a tube into a central vein, so they can pump chemicals into you more efficiently.
ReplyDeleteIf only they worked up the Matrix as well.