Breathing Deeply: My Life With Cystic Fibrosis

Seda-give? Seda-GIVE?!

--Gene Wilder, "Young Frankenstein"




Today was the big day! I got my blood transfusion, which was a little more than I expected. I got 2 units of "FFP" (fresh, frozen platelets) mmmm....
Basically, they gave me everything that's in blood except the red blood cells. Boy was it cold going in!

For all my nerves about being "awake" for the process, my fears were unfounded. The scariest part was being draped in that big papery tent thing to keep the area sterile. It made me feel a little claustrophobic, but once they gave me the sedative, I didn't care so much.

The new port is made of titanium (NASA grade, thank you very much!) but doesn't contain enough metal to set off any alarms at the airport or anything. Nonetheless, I now have to carry a card in my wallet that says I have a medical device implanted.

I think the coolest part of the whole thing was that THEY LET ME KEEP THE OLD PORT! Woo hoo! As a naturally inquisitive person, I figured it couldn't hurt to ask, so when I was lucid, I said "hey, can I keep that thing?" They thought I was nuts, but so what.

I'll be putting a little show-and-tell together with a diagram and photos of it for ya'll to see soon. (Christy, this is especially for your girls' benefit.) I figure it's one thing to read all the info about these things, and completely another to have a visual aid to back it up.

Thanks everyone for your well-wishes and prayers about today. I'm quite sore, and will be for the next little while, but I'm glad the whole procedure went without incident.