Tomorrow I finally get my port removed. My port has been detective for many months now and, with my oncologist's help, I finally have a surgeon willing to remove it knowing that they probably won't get paid for it.
I'm already past $150,000 in medical debt and bankruptcy is a likely outcome. I don't know any other way to deal with it. Medicaid and Social Security are unwilling to help me any more than they have (one session of chemo is all I was able to get from them) and having no health insurance hurts the situation. If you don't have health insurance, figure out how to get it.
In my research, I've found that Lymphoma isn't really preventable. Other than taking loads of vitamin B3 (something between 5000 and 10000 IUs per day), there isn't a lot you can do. I went from being a normal, healthy 24 year old to an being critically unhealthy Stage 4a Primary Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma cancer patient. It hit me hard and can hit you too.
I think the last time it was successfully flushed was in August or September. When I went back for my routine port flush, the Oakley hospital nurses couldn't flush it. I went to Colby to see if they could do it, with no luck. Now it's likely filled with lovely blood clots and is a definite health hazard for me. The port feeds direct into my SVC, which apparently leads directly to the heart. If one of those clots come loose, it could cause me some seriously unhappy health trouble. I'm sure you can imagine what trouble that would be.
The doctors and nurses believe that the tube that runs from the port to the SVC is cracked and leaking. When the nurses tried to flush the port, it caused terrible pain outside of my port, to the left side (where the port doesn't go) and there was no blood return at all. I had a similar reaction when I was in the hospital and my IV had started leaking outside of the vein in my arm. Thankfully neither of those times I was getting chemo as that stuff is horribly toxic.
Anyway, I'm getting the damned port out. I'm very happy about this.
I'm already past $150,000 in medical debt and bankruptcy is a likely outcome. I don't know any other way to deal with it. Medicaid and Social Security are unwilling to help me any more than they have (one session of chemo is all I was able to get from them) and having no health insurance hurts the situation. If you don't have health insurance, figure out how to get it.
In my research, I've found that Lymphoma isn't really preventable. Other than taking loads of vitamin B3 (something between 5000 and 10000 IUs per day), there isn't a lot you can do. I went from being a normal, healthy 24 year old to an being critically unhealthy Stage 4a Primary Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma cancer patient. It hit me hard and can hit you too.
I think the last time it was successfully flushed was in August or September. When I went back for my routine port flush, the Oakley hospital nurses couldn't flush it. I went to Colby to see if they could do it, with no luck. Now it's likely filled with lovely blood clots and is a definite health hazard for me. The port feeds direct into my SVC, which apparently leads directly to the heart. If one of those clots come loose, it could cause me some seriously unhappy health trouble. I'm sure you can imagine what trouble that would be.
The doctors and nurses believe that the tube that runs from the port to the SVC is cracked and leaking. When the nurses tried to flush the port, it caused terrible pain outside of my port, to the left side (where the port doesn't go) and there was no blood return at all. I had a similar reaction when I was in the hospital and my IV had started leaking outside of the vein in my arm. Thankfully neither of those times I was getting chemo as that stuff is horribly toxic.
Anyway, I'm getting the damned port out. I'm very happy about this.
I never could quite understand hospital humans being so nonchalant about requiring payment before treatment.
I'm glad you found someone willing to do this for you.