My Central Catheter Humor

I had a central tunneled catheter placed in my chest for harvesting my stems cells and transplant. I got to the operating area early in the morning and waited for my name to be called. After 15 minutes or so I was called and walked back to the prep area with the nurse.

She gave me a gown and told me to change. When I was done, she asked,

“Do you have a hairy chest?”

“Umm…. Yes?”

“I’m shaving it off.”

“Ok”

So she had me lay down on the bed, open up my shirt, and she got to work. Buzz buzz buzz. It turns out she only needed to shave my upper part of my chest, right above my nipples, all the way across.

I saw myself later in the day, shirtless in front of a mirror. Clear skin on the top and a hair bottom. It looks like I have a tube top on. Too bad I’m not busty. Actually, I take that back, I’m not interested in man boobs.

Speaking of boobs, the way they placed the catheter, I had both lumen ends in my armpit, which was a bit annoying. I was telling my family this, and said,

“I’m going to start wearing a bra just to hold my tubes from swinging around.”

My daughter quickly volunteered to take me bra shopping.

Anyhow, the catheter did its job. It turns out, one of my ends fell apart after stem cell collection and no one noticed. Come to find out, without the ends on, it’s like having a (clamped) plastic vein hanging out of your chests. Due to the infection risk, they yanked it out, only after a few days of having it. A week later they installed a picc line in my arm for the high dose chemo and stem cell rescue procedure.

I’m at day +5 right now for the myeloma people out there, and I’m hanging in there.