Blood letting and bonding

Went to the hospital for pre chemo bloods yesterday. Met a very personable nurse.

He got his little pillow out as he had obviously noticed that I had no PICC line in my arm. I didn't catch on to what he was doing at first but when I realised I was like "oh, no need for that, I have a port!". Whipped my top off quicker than a page 3 model - it's okay, I had a vest top on underneath too, didn't want to traumatise the poor chap at our first meeting.

He "accessed the port" (cue Star Trek theme toon again) and commented that they'd got a good vein there, presumably meaning one that blood actually freely flows from as opposed to the ones in my arms which have been so ineffective in the past they might as well not be there. Heard about a lady recently whose port became blocked. Now petrified that might happen to me one day and they might have to take it out and use alternative methods. Please don't let me be that unlucky. It's all character building, it's all character building, repeat ad infinitum...

Then we had a good old chat about what I do for a living, my fear of needles, his own personal big fear of having actual surgery, how brave he thinks cancer patients are - we really made the most of our actually quite short appointment!

When I was leaving he said it was nice to have met me. Fluffiness and feel good factor at the chemo unit, who'd have thunk it?!