PowerPort: A Critical Tool for Chemo Treatment
- Aug 19, 2024
- 2 min read
While not all cancer patients face long treatment plans, many of us do. Typically anything more than 6 months and oncologists will often recommend putting in a port. This port is a beneficial tool for patients, helps to save your veins, and makes it easier to take medication, or in some cases, blood draws or IV fluids.
The benefits of a port include the fact that it can be implanted in the body for months or even years. It is by far the most comfortable way to receive treatment as you're only getting poked once and you can be hooked to an IV for as long as necessary. When you think about treatment, an IV is often impractical and can be difficult if you have to go in frequently. There's also the risk of long-term damage to veins in the arms or hand - I've been dealing with quite a bit as I have pretty significant scar tissue on my left arm veins. There is also a lower potential for infection which is pretty important throughout treatment. And for those of us with a tape allergy, ports don't require adhesives as they use a specific interlocking needle design.
The port that I have has 3 main parts: the catheter, the Base, and the Palpation Bumps. I found this cool x-ray of what the port looks like under the skin in my medical file. When you look at my skin, you can see 3 little bumps right under my left collarbone. It doesn't hurt or anything, but when I first got the port put in it was a little uncomfortable. Once the scar healed up, everything has been fine since. I can do all the things that I normally would do - swim, exercise, etc.- without worrying about messing up my access. Since my treatment is on a regular cadence, I don't even have to worry about maintenance - my port is regularly accessed so it's flushed on every infusion day.
While ports are not exclusively used for cancer patients, they can make the experience overall of having to deal with infusion therapy better and more comfortable. And in my experience, this has been overall true. It's not a perfect or flawless method, but it is overall a thousand times better than having an IV put in my hand every 3 weeks for 2 hours. It would be my recommendation that if you have the choice, go forward with getting the port.
If you need more information, here are some links that I've used for research:
Talk again soon!
OLIVIA
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