Post op Day 9 and Home Health Mix-Ups

So today (1/25/18) is 9 days post op from getting my port placed. Overall everything is healing well and I haven’t had any problems with my port. The nurses have been able to access my port easily for my infusions and almost all the swelling has gone away. And the Emla cream (it’s a numbing cream) keeps me from feeling the stick of the access needle, is amazing and when you’ve had as many IVs as I’ve had you’ll learn to avoid pain whenever possible. And the Steri Strips that have been protecting my incision are falling off! Which is great, because that means I’ll soon be able to take a shower without using plastic wrap to cover the area.

Overall I'm still healing, my port incision gets irritated if I do too many things with my right arm. Usually I'm okay in the mornings, but by the end of the day I need to ice my chest. And I'm still trying to build range of motion back up in my arm and neck. Unfortunately though I'm pretty sure my collar bone is dislocated to some degree so that makes moving my arm around a bit difficult. My neck feels a little odd kind of stuck and tight, I'm also trying to get used to the feeling of the catheter in my neck. My nurses keep reassuring me that I'll get used to this whole process in time.

And if you're new here, I had a port placed because of severe Gastroparesis leading to chronic dehydration and malnutrition. I currently receive Potassium and Regular Saline three times a week. But when I switch over to home health entirely I'll be receiving Banana Bags. They will provide me with all the vitamins that I'm either losing from throwing up, or not getting from food, mainly because I don't eat a whole lot. There's also been small discussions with my doctors about possibly getting a J-tube but we're going to see if the port helps me first.  

And Home Health called yesterday and they’re sending out most of my supplies within the next couple days. Though there are a few mix-ups with my orders that I’m not thrilled about at all. For some reason the Home Health Pharmacy only has orders for me to infuse one banana bag a week instead of three a week, so I’m a bit irritated that my GI office keeps sending incorrect orders for nearly everything I need. But the pharmacy said they were going to take care of everything themselves and I won’t have to deal with calling my doctors office a hundred times a day until someone answers the phone.

Though I’ve irritated my doctor’s assistant I guess with all of this because I’m one of my GI doctors sickest patients unfortunately. So I suppose this could be new territory for all of us. But I know for the life of me I do not want to continue to go to the hospital three times a week, but I need the infusions to stay hydrated because my oral intake is crap. I’m just trying to hang in there as much as possible, because stressing is only going to make me sicker in the end.

I keep reminding myself that I’ve made it this far; I finally got my port placed. One step at a time is all I can do at this point.