The Colon Club

I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem.

Last week while I had my pump on, I developed a slow leak where the needle goes into my port. I first noticed it below the Tagaderm bandage on Wed evening and then above the bandage on Thurs morning. I went in to the onc's office and they replaced the needle so that I could get my last 3 hours of 5FU. On Sat the skin above my port turned red and sore.
I went in yesterday and the PA doesn't think it is infected. He thinks it is irritated from the 5FU spill and said the only thing that might help is to put cold compresses on it. It looks like I have a small sunburn about the size of a quarter on my chest.
The PA also asked how old my port was and said that it might need to be replaced if it leaks again. I'm hoping that this is just a one-time problem and that I won't have to have another port surgery.

That happened to me, and one more time no so much. I was lucky that my skin didn't get irritated, but it wasn't a port issue, it was me being a clutz and getting the tubing caught on something.

Ouch! So sorry you had that toxic 5FU leaking onto your skin and burning it. I hope this was a one-time weird thing, and that your port works fine after this.

My first port had a crack in it and leaked under my skin. I had a large spot of chemically burnt skin on my chest ( a size of a palm of a hand). It was so painful for several months.

John,

Stephen had a cracked portacath a while back and had some seepage...at first they said (chemo nurses and even the surgeons who put it in) everything was working properly because they did an xray and saw nothing suspicious. Stephen's shoulder started hurting really really badly, and so they agreed to do a flow test (based on suggestions from this board) and saw that there was a crack in his catheter...so they had to replace it and put it in the opposite shoulder. I think I remember you and I talking about this however.

Hi all,

It looks like the "burn" is turning a lesser shade of red and dissipating. I don't think I have any internal issues with the port as the chemo leaked on the outside.