Worried about port?

[Chelee]

I was talked into getting a port in my upper arm when I landed in the hospital a while ago. (Feb. 06)


Its been three months since he put it in. Thankfully, it has worked great. (knock on wood) But...just about the last month or so...its been getting sore where they stick it with that big old needle. Which I can live with that. But now I am getting pain in the BEND of my elbow toward the front...and right below where the port is under the skin also. The really bad pain is in the top, middle part of my shoulder. That really HURTS! Then the tubing they thread through your vein in that arm is getting brusied looking...meaning on the top of my skin. Doesn't look right. Plus pain under the arm pit arm...into chest where the tubing runs from the port. (I think that is how it works?)

So I have finally got my doctor and infusion nurses concerned enough that they decided NOT to use the port this last Monday. (They found a tiny little vein for my herceptin..ouch...that hurt.)

They sent me over for a doppler of my arm. The doppler guy sure took a LONG time. Things did NOT look good to me...but what do I know about reading a doppler screen. lol He went over a few of the areas MORE then once. I found that concerning? He did say as always..he CAN'T tell me anything...but he would give these to the vascular surgery and they would get back to me.

I am thinking regardess of how much it hurts all around my port...above and below it....if he LET me leave that hospital...there couldn't of been anything too bad...right? (Again, knock on wood.)

I realize they had to be looking for a blood clot? And if he found one...I can't see him letting me walk out of there...can any of you?

Is it always normal for the Doppler tech to give these to a Vasular surgeon? Or does that mean he DID see something? Even if it wasn't a clot...what else could be wrong in there to cause ALL this pain? Does anyone have any idea's? Plus, IF there IS ANY kind of a problem...would they want to remove it? I have no other place to put a port that I know of? This is stressing me out.

(One last thing I thought was strange? Since they HAD to use this little tiny vein that day for my herceptin...my pulse was higher then normal?) I even called the nurse over because I was watching TV and noticed my heart was racing more the usually. Kind of worried me.) She checked my pulse and it was at 115...her's was ONLY at 82 & she had been running around...all I was doing was kicking back and watching the tv.

Then that made me think since I did NOT feel that before when using the PORT...that something WAS wrong with the port? Like maybe its leaking some where inside..and the drugs aren't going where their suppose too? Why would it feel that different with a vein verses the port? My pulse didn't speed up when they accessed my port...why now that they used that little baby vein? I hope the drugs that were running through my port all this time have been going where they are suppose too? Sorry for all the questions.

Chelee