I had a port dye study done today to look at my central line to make sure that everything is going okay with it and that it does not have any clots or leaks in the line...
I had a busy day... beginning with normal treatments this morning at 4:45am and then Zach dropped me by mom's house on his way to work around 8:15am. Mom took me to the pulmonologist's office to drop off some sample "goobers" (if you dont know what goobers are... you dont have CF...) and then it was over to the hospital for the port dye study.
Having not personnaly met this particular vascular surgeon I was a tad nervous... so vitals were a bit elevated but all in all normal for me. The nurses in the pre surgical prep area were super... Beth and Kelly. They were excellent and helped put me to ease in no time... they also allowed mom to come back with me which I thought was very sweet.
After accessing my port (which I was most nervous about) and seeing that it worked beautifully as always I waited for them to call me into the OR.
I met Dr. Landis- great guy with a great sense of humor, he asked me if I was not aware that there was an age limit on access to that room. He proceeded to tell me you had to be at least 80! I laughed and knew right away this guy knew his stuff... so I relaxed a bit. Then told him that my lungs probably looked about 80! He got a good laugh from that too!
They put me on a nice cold table, covered me with some warm toasty blankets and hooke me up to some fancy glow in the dark contrast dye! They even put the monitor in front of me so I could watch everything they saw. As Dr. Landis pushed the dye through my line it lit up like a glow worm on the monitor- pretty cool! I could see exactly where the dye was traveling and (now that I have taken the long way around) the good news is that there is no problem with my 8 year old port! Yes you heard me... my port is almost 8 years old and still works like the first day they put it in!
I am so thankful that there is nothing wrong with this port and I am not facing any proceedures to try to fix it or worse have it removed! This port has been a life saver for all the meds I am on intraveneously from month to month... so I was really praying there was nothing wrong with it!
That news made my day!
Here are some examples of what the port looks like:
I spent the rest of the afternoon with my mom at her house, just taking it easy. But when I got home that evening after Zach and I had supper and were getting ready for bed... I broke out in hives. OY... I was not a happy camper. Turns out I was having an allergic reaction to the contrast dye- which contains iodine. Some people have reactions right away, others, like myself, have a reaction after enough of the iodine builds up in your system. Considering this is the third scan I have had in 3 months with some type of dye, I guess it was bound to happen at some point. So now I will add contrast dye to my long list of medical allergies...
I have taken some benadryl and am hopeful these dreadful things are gone in the morning!
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