Proud to be portless

Wow, it's been more than a month.  I guess as things get back to normal I have less to say.

So here's a little bit of a recap...

I saw an ENT.  I believe that the word the tech used to describe my hearing was "spectacular".  Or something to that effect.  The only possible oddity that they found was a tiny piece of hair that was on my left eardrum.  The doc managed to get it out.  He gave me a qualified okay to go scuba diving.  His suggestion was to first go to a local pool and go down to the bottom and make sure that I have no problems equalizing.  I did this a couple of weeks ago, and at least at the relatively shallow depth of 12 feet, I had no problem.

GI issues continue to improve, as predicted.  I wouldn't say everything is completely normal, but for the most part it's close.  Any occasional discomfort I have is typically pretty mild.  I'm not sure if I'm yet recovered enough for wings, but it's been a while since I've had a serious enough situation that I needed to stop what I was doing and lay down, which had been happening sporadically in the past.

And the really big news, I got my port out!  This is the thing they implanted in my chest to deliver chemo.  Pictured in this post.  The original plan was to get it out sometime last fall.  But I was in pretty poor health at the time, so we put it off somewhat indefinitely.  It did somewhat come in handy when I was in the hospital over the winter, but I had gotten really sick of having it in.  One thing that kind of sucked was that it's supposed to be tapped at least every 4-6 weeks or so, to make sure it doesn't get infected.  And that's not the most fun procedure -- it's a little painful.  Nevertheless, it seemed prudent to wait until after my most recent scan, just to make sure everything was fine and it wasn't likely to be needed again.

It's been 2 weeks now since I got it out, and while the area is still a little bit tender, it's healing nicely.  Yay to being fully human again!  I wanted to keep the port, but they wouldn't give it to me.  They said they'd have to sterilize it first, and they didn't have the facilities to do that in the area where the port was removed, and I guess they either don't have the procedures in place or just didn't feel like sending it off somewhere else to do so.

So life is in general pretty good.  I'm working full time, and for the most part all in the office.  I'm riding my bike to work most of the time.  And Dylan continues to be a joy.  (Most of the time.)  And we're looking forward to vacationing in Costa Rica.  (Dylan will be spending the time with Lorien's parents in Toronto.)

Gotta run, Dylan is getting a bit impatient with my typing.