Both my mom and brother had combos of Ports and PICC lines due to chemo and hospital stays.
My brother’s situation was complicated by the fact that he had previously had his lymph nodes removed under one of his armpits (due to a previous, unrelated cancer treatment) – making that arm unfit for BP cuffs, IVs, etc. The nurses at the hospital used to forget, regularly – even though there were signs above his bed, it was on his chart, etc, that they needed to do BP on his leg because the other arm was full of tubes.
The big risk is infection. I know the visiting nurse (when he wasn’t in the hospital) would do inspections of the port.
Both my brother and mom liked it better with the port – less sticks. Especially for chemo. It also offered more freedom of movement than an IV to the arm… which was nice when you’re sitting in a chemo chair for hours on end, and need to change a page, shift position, whatever.
