How Hodgkin's Changed My Chest

I always liked my chest. It was just right. Smooth. I never felt too bony or too heavy. I felt just right. I noticed right before the doctors diagnosed me my chest was a lot more full. You could not see my clavicle on my right side at all, but you could on the left. I found that so odd. Of course it was odd and something my doctor noticed immediately.

So here is a before shot of my chest.


And a couple more





And here are some after shots. First the surgery that started it all. The surgery was May 4th 2007. This was most likely the next day. I stayed in ICU. Remember I was also several weeks pregnant. I am linking this one because it's a bit more graphic. I had staples in my chest and it's a pretty nasty looking cut.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-7/264760/biopsy.jpg


This is right after my port surgery.




This is a good shot of the port itself



And another angle with biopsy scar and port.



After port removal and marked for radiation:



Now what my chest looks like with port gone and biopsy scar. It's pretty obvious here. I don't mind so much the scar as I do the indention. They had to actually shave off bone to get to the tumor so it dents in pretty good. One day, I hope to maybe fix that somehow. I try to remember they are my war wounds. You can't see it as well but I have a scar from the port that actually looks a little keloided. It grew and got red and puffy..sometimes itches. It's not gigantic or anything but I think I put a little makeup on it for my Halloween outfit. It did a good job covering it I think.

Writing Too Much

I have never really been plagued with writer's block. Actually once I get going it's hard to shut me up. I think that can be just as big of a problem though. You certainly don't want to stray way off topic as I sometimes do. I have a lot of things in my head to write about. I sometimes think of something, forget it and then remember it later. Even in high school when our teacher would tell us to write so many words I would have trouble cutting my piece DOWN while others had trouble filling up the required space. I plan on writing about radiation which I don't think I have really went into a whole lot of detail about, at least recently. I want to discuss my 2 thyroid biopsies. I had superior vena cava syndrome, one of the very major symptoms that the tumor was causing major problems before we knew it was a tumor. I can think of so many things, I just hope I can remember them when I want to! If you out there as readers have a specific question regarding cancer, or a special treatment let me know. I just thought of another thing. I had a certain kind of chemo regularly used for treating Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It is called ABVD. Each drug has a long and rather hard to pronounce name. Each comes with it's own side effects. This particular regimen was not the one they used to use for Hodgkin's. I think it's fairly new as far as chemo goes. I think. I have to look that up. Anyway, I am giving you sort of a glimpse into what I plan on writing about soon. So look for my new posts regularly.

Biopsy Surgery was Bad.....Port Surgery?

Well, my port surgery in itself was not bad. Port surgery is so hard to explain. I had no idea what it even was before I had it done. I am including a picture of the port itself. I had to be put to sleep to have it done. It was only a 30 minute surgery. They woke me up by literally pulling me out of bed and dragging me to the bathroom. I was so out of it. I was bandaged for awhile but when the bandages were off I had a hard lump in my chest with a tube you can totally feel going up and then disappearing somewhere inside. The tube went into a vein...this distributed the chemo without lots of pokes into the veins in my arms. The needle wasn't exactly small. It had to penetrate the plastic port in my chest. I was always told to take a deep breath and they'd push it in. It was never a pleasant experience but you do get used to it. My nurses could never get my blood to come out of this thing. It's supposed to, but it would never work. My chemo thankfully did go INTO it alright so I didn't have to have that in the arm. I got poked and prodded so much back then. Getting a needle now is just not a big thing to me at all.

Having the port removed was another story. They kept me awake for that. If you go back and read my old posts you can see what I wrote the day it happened. Basically I had a bigger scar there from the original port surgery than the doc thought I should. So he tried to cut away the scar and extra tissue while removing the port thinking it would look better. This scar got so bad and grew all fat. It's not as long as the biopsy scar but it itches more and occasionally gets stabbing pains in it. This happens out of the blue and only on occasion. I won't complain. It's more annoying than anything. I am including pics of the needle and port so you can get an idea of what I mean. I put a picture of the port in my chest in my earlier post about the ugy side of cancer.