Port placement

hello L- I had a port-a cath in for almost six months, on the left side. It functioned well, and made the weekly blood draws and chemo infusions easier. But I always knew it was there. At first, as a side sleeper, it did interfere. Later, I was able to sleep on my side, but I still always knew it was there.

I think different people have different experiences. I just got mine out last week. Glad to have it out. But as I said, I regard it as a necessary evil

I have never had any issue with sleeping because of my port. It's been in for 6 yrs (later this month) and I never think about it at all - well other,than to remember to go for the monthly flushes which happens to be today.

I was unable to sleep on that side.

My port has never been used for blood draws (except 1 time when I had a blood draw scheduled the same day as a flush so the RN did the blood draw when she did the flush). I have great veins. Not all can do port access - only MDs, PAs, NPs and RNs with training can access them..

Hi there,

I too have had problems sleeping on my side and also sleeping on my back with my head turned too far to the side -either side. I think I may have found a solution, however: I found that I slept better on my leather sofa than my regular bed. I figured out that this was because the leather sofa provided some back support, so I could sleep turned to my side much more comfortably without disturbing the port. I have a large japanese buckwheat pillow, so I tried propping my back up on it in my regular bed - and it worked. I am now looking at body pillows on Amazon. This one is apparently a dream for pregnant women, but looks like it would do the job: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P2OH1HE

I had a weird episode with the port at my last treatment, which was 2 days ago. I get blood drawn from my port, and the nurse had a hard time drawing blood. He had a hard time finding the port and its bumps, and when he did he said he thought it had "shifted." (I felt around later, and it felt fine to me.) Then, when he stuck me, the blood was not coming out very readily. It took him 10-15 minutes to draw the blood, and he had to ask me to repeated "breathe deeply" (by the end I was hyperventilating), and had me raise my arm. He eventually got the blood, and later when my regular, most beloved, nurse oncologist came to give me my dose he checked the "blood return," and everything seemed normal, and chemo resumed as normal. I think it really does depend on who tries to draw blood. Some people seem to have a knack for it and it's over in a few seconds, and some people don't.