I’ve been De-ported!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all! I had my port-a-catheter removed today. We went to Dr. Usher’s today for an 11 am apt. Karin was happy that he would let her watch. He numbed me up pretty good then came back and cut it out. Probably 15 minutes tops (some of that due to showing stuff to Karin). It would have been faster, but he started with a dull scalpel. A few interior stitches and some on the outside that I will keep in for a week. I have to keep it dry for 36 hrs, then we can change the dressing. I’m starting to feel it a bit tonight – a little discomfort.

I went by Dr. Negrea’s office for a port flush yesterday. I wanted to have my CBC tested to make sure my counts were good before the surgery. All were good.

We had a great Christmas. We travelled to NC to stay with my folks. Santa visited Bennett there (as well as in Savannah). He got the one thing that he had really requested, a saw so that he could cut down trees and cut wood. I got him the smallest real hacksaw by Buck that I could find. We got to visit with a few Eden friends, but we did not have time to see nearly enough. It always works out that way. It was great to see a lot of family after Christmas too. All was good except for the ride back to Savannah. Traffic ground to a near halt on I-95 in SC south of Santee. I kick myself for not having a map or atlas in the car. We could have cut at least an hour off the trip by going backroads, but without a map I didn’t know which way to head. The Wilsons had supper ready for us when we finally arrived. Bennett got more tools.

I’m on vacation this week. I hope to get a few things accomplished around the house. It will be good to spend time with Bennett and Karin and sleep in a little bit.

Next week at work kicks off a crazy month+. Our mill is down for an outage that will last longer than three weeks. Thankfully I got assigned to long days (much better than long nights). Following the outage we will be starting up some new systems that I developed some of the training for. That will entail several weeks of learning as we start up the new equipment.

Thanks for your support this year as well as the previous. Have a great New Year.

Mark