An Educational Day at the SCCA, Lesson 1: My Port Is Broken

I learned a lot at my oncology visits today. The first thing I learned is that my port has taken a permanent vacation from half of its duties. The port is primarily designed to allow providers to easily dump chemicals into your body. Mine still does that. But there's a secondary benefit of a port, in that it allows providers to get easy access to your blood. Mine doesn't do that anymore. At this point, they can dump whatever they want into me, but there ain't no blood coming back out.

My port is now one way only.

As far as my PA was concerned, that's no big deal. If I don't mind getting jabbed in the arm they can just draw my blood intravenously, and it's all good. 

But the nurse in the infusion center had a different opinion. When I told her what the PA had told me, her response was, "She can say what she wants. We have policies." It made me laugh. But she went off to check. Happily for me, the policies would allow the drugs I get to be delivered without the confirmation of a blood return. 

I say happily as it would've meant a couple more hours in the infusion center if they had to force the port to stat working in both directions.