If these drugs were to leak out of a needle in my arm, I would need skin grafts to fix the damage. It's a hard rubber ball inside a metal and plastic case attached to a thin tube that is inserted into the vein that leads to the left ventricle of my heart. There are few nerve endings in the skin, so the needle piercing through to the rubber is barely noticeable. The portacath looked like a bump under the skin. It didn't interfere with anything but some bra straps.
Chemo treatments take about four hours.
After you are hooked up you sit in a really comfy chair and read magazines and nap or chat with other people similarly hooked up. It is surprisingly painless, calm and restful. It would be the only eight times in the next 10 months that I would sit down and do nothing. I planned to continue to work, so the regimen went like clockwork. Sunday was normal and I was back at work Monday.