A Diva Moment

Ports and stuff April 30, 2014

Everyone should get a port. Seriously. They are awesome! Okay, maybe not everyone. Maybe just the people who have to get blood drawn often or get IV’s done often. Ports are soooo much better than IV’s! You do have to have the port inserted, but once that is done, it’s smooth sailing.

So a port is basically a metal device that is surgically inserted under the skin and is connected to a major vein (subclavian or jugular) via a catheter (a small tube). The port looks like this:

The metal roundish portion goes under the skin. The triangular looking thing with the needle poking out is used to access the port and is how medication is administered and blood is drawn.

And this is what it looks like inserted. It’s like a bump under the skin.

The top is made of self-healing rubber, and it’s where the needle is inserted. The bottom portion is made of a metal (titanium or stainless steel) and it ensures that the needle doesn’t go sailing through the vein. Ports can be used for all sorts of things (delivering medicine, drawing blood, administering contrast dyes, etc.) In my case, it’s being used to deliver the chemo and to draw blood.

But back to why it’s awesome. It’s virtually pain free, at least for me it has been. There’s no fishing around with a needle trying to find a vein. There’s no pain associated with the IV insertion. No irritation or pulling on the IV insertion site. If you are going to have several things done in one day, you just access the port, and you can leave it accessed until everything is done. Accessing means the needle is inserted and the vein can now be accessed. This is what an accessed port looks like:

(The blue thing is where the syringe attaches.)

Anyway, so ports are awesome! And now on to the “stuff”. Today is chemo #2. The first chemo went really well and I didn’t feel terrible. There were maybe two days where I felt not great, but the rest were remarkably smooth. In talking with the medical oncologist today, he seemed to think this was a good sign and that I would likely do pretty well with subsequent infusions. The tiredness will continue to get worse, but he didn’t think I would suddenly get slammed with nausea. Hooray for that! He WAS surprised at how great my bloodwork looked. If you’ll recall, my hemoglobin was way low right after the second surgery. It was only 8 and as such, I had to take iron pills for a month. Well, as of yesterday, my hemoglobin is back up to 11, which is apparently a huge improvement. So huge, in fact, that the doctor wondered if I’d gotten a blood transfusion! Hooray body for boosting that number back up. Go team!

The one bit of news that was weird and disconcerting was regarding weight gain. I’d already read that breast cancer patients tended to gain weight on chemo, and had already started to see some of that. I wasn’t sure if the weight gain was still part of the “I’m no longer breast-feeding and haven’t figured out how to modify my food intake so I’ve managed to gain 10 pounds in 2 months” regime. Now I know that it’s chemo-related and can quit stressing about eating less food. But here’s the weird thing. The weight gain has something to do with breast cancer and not with the drugs. You can give the exact same chemo drugs to a lung cancer patient, and they will lose weight and look emaciated, while a breast cancer patient will gain weight. Isn’t that totally weird?

Wanna know what else is weird? It’s totally possible for spouses to get sympathetic chemo side effects. Hubs has had a weird, metallic taste in his mouth, which is a common side effect. I’ve not had that one, but apparently, he’s having it for me. Poor guy. At least he didn’t get hit with nausea!

So there you have it, a little lesson on ports and a wee update on chemo.

I’ll leave with with a photo of me at my first and second chemo sessions.

Some things never change January 5, 2013

Growing up, we ate lots and lots of fruits.  We had a little rolling cart with 4 baskets that was always full of fruits, and we would go to the grocery store almost daily to get more fruit.  I generally didn’t mind all of the fruit, that is, until I turned about 6 or 7.  At that point, certain fruits – citrus, apples and grapes – would make me upchuck.  My parents, dad especially, would be so annoyed with me and thought that I was puking just to be a recalcitrant child.  (As a side note, I can handle most bodily fluids, puke is not one of them.  I cannot even fathom doing that just to be obnoxious!!)

Anyway, I remember a time when I was maybe 9ish.  Oranges were served and I, of course, complained, knowing what the outcome would be.  I ended up losing it in the bathroom sink and my dad was all kinds of mad at me.  I’m not sure that I ever convinced my parents that I wasn’t making this up!  I eventually learned to just eat the fruit slowly and not think about it too much, and then I would be okay.  I still felt mega nauseated, but was able to keep it to myself, so to speak.

When I was about 12, we went to a fall festival and they had a game where apples were dangling from the ceiling from strings.  The point was to run up, take a bite out of the apple without touching it with your hands, and then run back and tag a team member.  I thought about playing, but then smacked myself in the head and said, “heck, NO!”

It wasn’t until college that I was able to comfortably eat apples.  I think I managed to figure out that the mealy ones were the ones that would do me in, so I just made sure to only eat the crispest apples around.  Grapes were still out and citrus was a total maybe.

By the time I hit grad school, I was able to eat most fruits about 85% of the time.  One time, we were at a friends’ house and oranges were served.  This happened to be a time that fell into the 15%, so I steered clear.  When asked why, I gave a brief explanation and moved on.  A friend was intrigued by this ailment and kept asking questions.  He clearly had no idea how cloyed I was feeling about the oranges!  After several calm attempts to get him to stop, I lost it and said, “Dude!  Unless you want me to puke all over you . . SHUT UP!”  He looked a little shocked, and stopped, but I could tell deep down inside he REALLY wanted to get to the bottom of it all!

So, I wasn’t being a recalcitrant child all those years ago.   I’m 36 and some fruits can still send me running to the porcelain throne!  You might be wondering what brought this to mind?  Let’s just say that I won’t be eating any more of those chocolate dipped clementines we had for dessert today!  😀

Summer sewing: speed sewing October 8, 2012

I’m a slow seamstress. I’d like to think I’m speedy, but really, I”m not. Things always take me so much longer to complete than I think they should. DH is always hearing: “Oh, let me just finish this up real quick. It should take me about 15-20 minutes.” An hour or more later, I emerge from my sewing room with the finished item. I’m realizing that I”m just too meticulous to be a speed sewer, and stuff just takes time.

I did discover, though, that I AM capable of churning things out quickly when I really need to and if I don’t put mass amounts of thought into it. So I present to you, my list of speedy sewing.

DS2 started using a pillow back in the spring. It was actually one of the decorative pillows from our bed that we never used. One night, I got the bee in my bonnet to make him a pillowcase while DH was giving the babes a bath. This project took me 15 minutes from “Oh, I NEED to make him a pillowcase!” to “Ta-da! Here it is!” That includes finding the fabric (the battle is oftentimes won and lost here for me), getting the measurements, cutting and sewing. He loves it!

At the babywearing conference that took place in D.C. this summer, I taught a class on how to make ring slings. In order to brush up on my skills, I made ring slings for each of the babes, using a different shoulder style for each one. I did a hot dog shoulder, a gathered shoulder and a SBP-style pleated shoulder. Ring slings are pretty fast to make if you aren’t doing anything fancy. I made all three slings in an hour and a half, so about 30 minutes per sling.

The night before going to the aforementioned conference, I decided that a HAD to have a little business card holder. I whipped this up in 5 minutes!

That same night, I also HAD to make a carseat protector. DS2 is 26 months old and is still rear-facing. When he gets junk on his shoes, then the back of the car seat gets all dirty and gross. They are leather seats, so they clean up easily, but it just looks bad and is hard on the leather. So I put together a little protector. I made it out of laminated cotton and added some ties to the sides and bottom so that I could tie it to the back of the chair. It took me 30 minutes, with the most time-consuming part being sewing on the ties.

Before it got horribly hot this summer, the babes and I would go to the park rather often and then just stay for lunch. Sandwhiches were the usual fare. I realized that I only had one reusable sandwhich wrapper thing, so the day of a park playdate, I quickly made two more. I made my original one about 3 years ago, and ended up having some trouble getting the velcro properly lined up. I changed the design a bit this time, and it worked much better. These two wrapper things took me about 15 minutes each.

Bathing the babes is DH’s task since his back is in better shape than mine. His knees, however, were taking a beating having to kneel next to the tub. I made a bath mat/knee protector thing for him and now his knees are thanking me. It took me about 30 minutes to put together. You can see pics and read more deets about the mat over on my other blog.

The last item on my speed sewing list are carseat strap covers. I know some people will say you shouldn’t go changing things on the carseats. Generally, I agree. In this case, I was willing to make a change and get rid of the fire resistant strap covers that came with the seat. I figured if I was in an accident bad enough that the fire resistance of the strap covers mattered we’d have much bigger problems. So, DS1 and DD wanted something more colorful, so I made these strap covers for them in about an hour for both sets. I think I need to add a bit more padding, though, so I guess that will add another few minutes to the project.

So there’s my speed sewing list. Next up: general summer stuff for the babes.

Kids clothing week challenge October 8, 2012

Every spring and fall, I end up with a biggish list of things that I need to sew for the babes. Generally, everything most things end up getting done in the wee hours of the morning because “Shoot! They don’t have a jacket for tomorrow!” This time, I’d like to be a little more organized. I’ve been slowly switching their summer clothing over to fall/winter, and I’ve been making alterations as needed. I’ve gotten to the point, though, where I just need to bite the bullet and actually churn out a bunch of shirts and other things for them.

Enter: kids clothing week challenge. Over on Meg Freeman’s blog Elsie Marley, she is hosting a challenge this week. This is the first I’ve heard of it, but it looks like she’s been doing it every fall and spring for the past few years. The idea is that you commit to spending an hour each day creating some clothing for your child/ren. This is just the motivation I need! So I’m in!

Here’s my list of things I want to get done:

For DS1
– a winter vest
– a dressy winter coat
– 2-3 long-sleeved shirts
– 1 dress shirt
– 5 undershirts
– 2 pajama shirts
– 5-6 pairs of baby legs

For DD
– a winter vest
– 3-4 long-sleeved shirts
– 5 undershirts
– 1 sweater
– 1 dress
– 5-6 pairs of baby legs

For DS2
– honestly, he has so much stuff he doesn’t really NEED anything. But I can’t just leave him out, so I’ll probably make him a long-sleeved shirt or two.
– oh, right, he needs about 5 undershirts

For DS3
– a fall jacket that fits him now (as opposed to the 3-6 month size that is giant on him!)
– 2-4 pairs of pants

I have pinned several jackets and things for inspriation on my boys and girls boards. Mostly, I’ll just be making up my own patterns. I’ll be using Simplicity 2526 for DS1’s winter coat, and Simplicity 3582 for DS3’s fall jacket.

This is a pretty giant list, so we’ll see if I actually get everything done this week! Wish me luck!