A port is strongly recommended. Some, if not most, of the chemo is too strong to put in a vein in your arm or hand. I'd get one poke every time I went for chemo - the very short burst of insertion pain when accessing is a LOT less painful than sticking you every time they need to.

The surgery to install the port sounds awful, but it was not difficult. Mine was done outpatient.

The downside of a port is that eventually once chemo is done, it needs to be flushed periodically - for me every month. My chemo completed in December 2021 and I'm just getting scheduled to remove the port now. Not certain if they waited until until I was stable or it was missed.

The good part of the flushes is I got the visit my "angels" at the infusion center monthly. I will miss that.