Part 9
"The Port"

On Thursday, August 6th, I was scheduled to have surgery to put my port in. My parents and I had met with the doctor earlier in the week to discuss the details of the operation. What they were going to do was make an incision in my chest, close to my right collar bone. They would then place the port (which is a piece of rubber the size of a coke bottle top) under my skin, and connect the tube to one of my main veins in my shoulder. The operation would only take around 1 hour. Now, since this was my first real operation, I was a little hesitant about the whole thing. For that reason, I told the doctor to put me asleep for the surgery. This was no problem. The doctor told me that I could not eat solid foods after 12:00am the previous night. I couldn’t drink anything after 10:00am on Thursday. Since I only had to receive chemotherapy once that week, my tongue had finally started to turn back to its normal color. This made food taste much better than it had the previous week. So the thought of not eating for a little bit kind of disturbed me. Oh well. At least I wouldn’t have to get poked in my arms and hands each day.

At 12:00am Thursday morning I stopped eating, just like the doctor told me. Before that time, however, I grubbed down on as much food I could find in the kitchen as possible. On Thursday morning, my dad dropped me off at mama and papa’s (my grandparent’s house). I parked myself in papa’s comfortable easy chair and watched movies for about 4 hours. At around 1:30pm, my mom came over to take me to the hospital for my surgery. Mama and papa were going to come as well.

When we got over to the hospital, we went up to the surgery waiting room and told the nurses that I was there. We had waited in the room for about 15 minutes, when the doctor finally came out and called my name. I got up and followed him to the changing room. He told me to take off my clothes and put on put on "these two robes". I did as he told me. When I got out of the dressing room, a nurse was waiting and needed to get some information on me before the surgery. First she had to weigh me. Now, about two months ago I had weighed about 190 pounds. That’s an OK weight for someone that is about 6’4”, but I was still pretty skinny. In July I weighed 170 pound. The nurse took my readings and said, “One-hundred and fifty-six pounds.” 156 POUNDS!?!?! Geeze! I had lost about 35 pounds in two months. Next, she needed to know everything about my tumor and blood counts. My mom helped me explain to her all of the details. The next thing to do before the surgery was to put an IV into my hand. She found a good one in my left hand and got it in on the first try. She didn’t connect me to a machine yet, so she taped it to my hand. It was now time to go into the room. I said bye to my parents and started to walk with her to the surgery room. As we were walking to the room, I noticed that the rooms started to look a lot plainer. There were no more carpets, nice paint on the walls, or plants. I guess they had me put on the hospital socks to keep my feet warm as we walked on the cold concrete. When I finally got to the room there were several doctors waiting for me. One of the nurses came up to me and asked me to sit on the table in the center of the room. I got up on it and laid down. The nurse then connected my IV to a machine and started to move all of the equipment close to the surgery table. I remember all of the doctors were talking about the Mariners. They asked me if I liked the team. I told them I did and started to talk with them about the team. While I was talking, one of the nurses put a gas mask on me. After a few seconds, everything went black.

When I awoke, I was sitting in a chair in the recovery room. A nurse was also there, along with both of my parents. They told me that the surgery was over and that I could go home now. I felt a throbbing pain on my shoulder where the port was placed. I went back to the changing room to put my shirt back on. When I came out again, the nurse had a wheel chair waiting for me. My legs were feeling pretty weak, so I sat down in it and had my dad push me out to the elevators. When we got to the main floor, my mom went to pull the car around to the front of the hospital. When she made it to the front my dad wheeled me to the car and I got it. When then started to drive home. As we were driving I started to feel sick. My throat was also sore from the tube they had stuck in me as I was asleep. When we pulled up to the driveway I was feeling really sick. My mom turned off the car and I got out and ran to the bathroom. When I got into the bathroom I went over to the bathtub and vomited in it. “Blaaahh!!!!” My mom came into the bathroom and asked, “What’s the matter.” I threw up again. “Blaaah!!!” She asked again, “What’s wrong Cliffy?” Since my head was now in a big puddle of vomit and I was sore from surgery, I wasn’t in too good of a mood. “What’s it look like? I’m throwing up!” My mom didn’t say anything for a couple seconds, but then she started to ask me a question about something. I rested my head on the side of the tub and yelled, “just leave me alone!”

After a while, I started to feel better. Mama and papa came over and brought me some food. We all sat in the living room and chit chatted for a little. My shoulder was really hurting now. I told my mom about it and she gave me two asprin that the doctor had prescribed. Now, these weren’t your ordinary asprin. These were some heavy duty asprin. I took them and continued to eat the soup and rice mama had brought. After about thirty minutes I started to feel really tired. I told everyone that I was going to go to sleep. “Can you make it to your room by yourself Cliff?” I told them, “of course!” I got up and started to walk towards my room. I walked maybe a step when I started to fall. Good thing my dad and papa were there to catch me. Those asprin had really messed me up! I couldn’t even walk. Everyone was kind of laughing as dad and papa walked me to my room. I got into my bed and asked my dad to bring me the sports page. “I think I will read for a couple minutes”, I told them. Yeah right! I was out! Halfway through the night I woke up to go the bathroom. I yelled at my parents, “I have to go to the bathroom!” I was still pretty drugged up. My brother, Joe, came into my room and helped me get up. This was pretty embarrassing, having my brother help me take a leak. When we got to the toilet I told him to back off. “I can pee by myself!” I started out fine, peeing directly into the bowl. But after a few seconds, my pee stream started to rise as I started to fall backwards. “Whoa!” Joe was there to catch me and held me still until I finished peeing. He the walked me back to my bed and I fell asleep again.

That night I had a bad dream. I had a dream that the nurses in the hospital were coming in my room to take my blood as I was sleeping. It was one of those dreams that keep coming back even after you wake up.

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