Diving with a chest port post cancer treatment

[raven397]

hi all,

My lady friend completed chemo and radiation treatment for cancer [no lung involvement] on Jan. 4, and she is regaining strength slowly. she is anxious to get back diving, naturally. her oncologist wants to leave her chest port in for up to a year, just in case. It is sealed with heparin.
the oncologist and the radiologist know zilch about diving, and they did not give any advice one way or the other, as far as resuming diving.
we are going to try a pool session Friday to check whether her BCD might impinge on the port.
I have read over some existing threads about diving by cancer patients, and it seemed that post treatment, diving appears feasible.
Any thoughts?

 

[Rhone Man]

Got to be a bad idea unless you are wearing a dry suit surely? My wife was told not to get hers wet.

 

[Hemlon]

Rhone,

The kind of port he is talking about is under the skin. (Port-a-cath or similar product) They are able to be wet.

 

[raven397]

Got to be a bad idea unless you are wearing a dry suit surely? My wife was told not to get hers wet.

her port is totally under the skin, the oncologist did say that it was OK to swim.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

The only real problem she is likely to encounter is the BC straps rubbing on the lump from the port. Nothing a little extra padding wouldn't fix.
Heparin does not "seal" the port. It prevents the body from forming a clot on the tip of the catheter, which would, obviously, keep it from working. Now that she's not using the port regularly, she ought to be flushing it with saline and heparin periodically. If she's flushing it herself (some people can, some people simply cannot put the needle into themselves) then I'd be sure it gets flushed after you're done diving for the day.

 

[raven397]

well, we tried a pool session today at our local dive shop, The Scuba Shack in Burlington, KY. as was suggested, the only problem was the left BC strap, which went right over the port location. once Nancy loosed the left shoulder strap, there was no difficulty. she was very glad to get back in the water. I worked on my lousy air consumption rate...

 

[udtfire]

stop stop stop this is not the place for any conversation or any medical advice that you may take and do harm call dan and get a medical referral in your area. I say this in love and hope for the best outcome for your family please call divers alert network