My medi-port surgeries were the bookends of my medical journey: the beginning and the end. I'll never forget how terrified I was during that first procedure. It was the very first step in my cancer treatment plan. I was filled with so much uncertainty and anxiety back in January of 2018. But after months of chemo, then Herceptin treatments every three weeks, it felt so joyous to have the device taken away...just as it had helped take away my cancer. I will admit, though, being tethered to an IV drip so often did have its advantages. Besides the fact that it allowed my treatments to be less painful (in that I experienced less needle pricks), it also forced me to be still. I tend to stay busy. I'm often tightly wound, making lists and checking them twice. But during infusions I had no other choice but to take pause. To think. To consider. To reflect.
The infusion room at Texas Oncology/Presbyterian has a glass wall of windows overlooking a beautiful butterfly garden. It was almost meditative to be there. The lifeline of medicine connecting to the mound beneath my collarbone provided more than just cancer fighting drugs. It was also the catalyst for a personal and physical transformation. Soon my steri-strips, like a chrysalis, will fall away revealing the scar underneath. And my year-long journey will finally feel complete.