[Colleens_Husband]

Cal Gal:

Colleen had constant grief with her port just like you did. They did the dye tests repeatedly and it always said it was working except that they could never get a blood return. One of the few times they did get a blood return the port clogged and it backed up causing Colleen considerable pain.

The surgeon said there was a couple possible reasons for the problem. One, the end of the port which goes into a heart aorta may have been too close to arterial (or was it a vein?) wall and that when you apply suction for the blood return it vacuums itself onto the arterial wall and plugs up. If you can run saline through the port so that the patient can taste the saline, then you know the port is functioning.

Another possibility is that by touching or feeling the port membranes or sometimes just by active living the port sucks blood into the tip of the port in the aorta which coagulates and plugs everything up. If you have a double port than that increases the chances of the thing plugging up.

I hope that helps. Even though Colleen's port was unending grief, Colleen was probably better off than her sister who didn't have a port and still has problems with her veins years after all of her chemotherapy.

Lee