I had my chemo port removed today. It took about a half hour and seems to have gone off without a hitch. There was a moment when a needle was unaccounted for after they stitched me up but other than that, there were no surprises for the surgeon. Even though they put me under for the port installation, they didn’t feel the need to knock me out for the port removal.  I just lay on the table, shirtless, getting injected with local anesthetic until I couldn’t feel the surgeon poking me with the scalpel. Then, he re-opened the incision that they made to install the port and started cutting with something that looked like a soldering iron.  This went on for about 10 minutes while he tried to expose the stitches that were holding the port in place. Then, he snipped the stitches and was able to pull it out.  

It was a strange experience laying there smelling my own skin being charred. In fact, I can still smell it. To be clear, it doesn’t smell like BBQ. 

I think I prefer being unconscious for this type of thing, but all things considered, it wasn’t too bad.   

Up next: We cut out the remainder of the tumor (I’ll be unconscious for that one).