This is a late post but an important one nonetheless. Mom's port was removed last Tuesday without much incident. There was a little more bleeding than normal - but she has been on Xarelto (SP?) for the last year and that was expected. She stopped taking it a couple days prior to the surgery but sometimes it takes a little while longer to get out of the system. The nurses bundled her up good and had her keep pressure on the incision points for over 24 hours and it worked out fine.
Some have asked about removing the port - and yes this is a good thing as there is no chemo in mom's foreseeable future. Her blood counts are great and her CA125 has been really low since her last round of chemo a couple of years ago. If anything changes, she will address it as it comes along. She is thankful for every day and I am too.
Mom is such a celebrity at Hammond Henry Hospital! I love going there with her. Everyone (nurses, doctors, volunteers) is always happy to see her and they don't go without saying how much she is missed (even though she has been retired 20 years) and loved. Truly wonderful to know she has impacted so many and I know she took good care of everyone while she worked there. Being a post-op nurse (and a surgical nurse too... she filled a lot of areas in that hospital) is not work for the faint-hearted. As we all know mom is a tough girl but also has a lot of compassion as well.
The only thing on our agenda for the fall is hitting a couple of mom's reunions - she has one coming up for her nursing class (in Peoria) and then a high school reunion in Ottawa in October. She's looking forward to both events.
