Sorry to hear that you are going through this. I found that the situation became less stressful after there was a plan in place, and I just had to show up and do it.

Regarding the chest port, I had two rounds of chemo through veins in my arms before I had a port implanted (I was 57). That was one round too many. The first round went fine, but chemo messes up your veins, so during the second round, they kept trying to stick needles in different places to start with, and then moved the needle into different veins twice during the infusion. Ugh. Starting chemo ASAP is probably good, even without a port, but I would recommend getting a port before the second round.