My Port

I can’t walk around the Moffitt Cancer Center without feeling nauseous. It is especially bad on the 4th floor where the infusion center is located and in the lab where they access my port and draw my blood.

The port is a 1 inch metal circular disk located under my skin about 3 inches under my collarbone. It has a tube that lies over my collarbone and is inserted into one of my veins up there. The process of accessing my port involves me taking a deep breath while the nurse (phlebotomist, technician, whoever she is) pokes a thumbtack sized needle with tubing into the disk, which has to go through my skin first, it hurts for a bit but after that whenever someone needs to poke me they insert the needle into one of the tubes instead of into me. It is way better then the process of locating any of the veins in my arm.