fine until you hit a vein...

well...since it's an evening affair and the show must go on regardless...why not DOCUMENT it for your viewing pleasure with your morning coffee and croissant. enjoy it. the croissant. cuz i can't eat right now and it sounds like heaven.

at any rate...looking at these pictures makes it seem TEN TIMES worse than it actually is...trust me....it's NOT that bad!!!
ok...where do we start...

here is my kit, it's the medicine pen with little disposable needles, looks so clean and innocent:



you take it out of the fridge one hour before injection time, so the medicine can become room temperature. below is the dial for your to set the dose. my dose is 75 IUs a day. so line the arrow up with the 75!



i get my gear rollin:



i take the pen cap off....and it's a screw top.
you'll note the air bubble in the syringe ...and yes, it gives me nightmares too. do you realize that if you inject an air bubble into your vein, you'll die.... it's true. it's called an embolism to the heart and.....you die. i have tried and TRIED to get the air bubble out. it's not budging. which is fine...for two reasons. A) we're not inserting an IV here. there SHOULD not be any veins involved...hello....only pudge. no arteries. only belly pudge. and B) i've wasted a HALF A DAYS medication trying to flick the air bubble out and squirt a smidge of meds out to clear the vial of all air. it ain't movin'. and the meds in this vial go for $90/day on the street. (so if i happened to live in san diego right now, and my house caught fire...you can imagine the very FIRST thing i'd save before jumping out the window).....and i'd rather risk death, with my husband holding the smoking gun, than to WASTE ANY MORE OF MY PRECIOUS POTION....

exhibit A: air bubble



clean it with an alcohol swab, air bubble is daunting me. i've contemplated injecting the meds ICE COLD out of the fridge because then it's like...clear...sludge. the air bubble is paralyzed in the thick cold potion. but puffy took too long walking rudy tonight and it was warm too quickly by the time he got home. i asked the nurse today if the air bubble was legitimately lethal and got dead air on the other end of the phone line.....

"...well....how big IS the air bubble?"

OMG...are you JOKING!? we're going to hang my life in the balance based on THE MOST subjective question on earth!!?

"....uhm...don't worry allison....you should be fine."

(it's sorta their standard protocol script they feed me now...'hold lemme pull up your file.." and i KNOW in bold, RED, blinking letters on the computer screen once my file is open, it reads, "TELL HER NOT TO WORRY, SHE WILL BE FINE.")



moving on....take one of the little disposable needles and tear the top off:



it screws onto the pen....



once it's secure...pull it off!!
(RUN FOR COVER...it's slowly taking on the shape of an INJECTION. omg. i think i JUST figured out what i want to be for halloween. not kidding....it JUST came to me....)



now swab down the injection site...and the living room instantly transforms to a hospital room the MOMENT that scent of STERILE ALCOHOL takes flight.



puffy about to STAB ME. he insisted i crop his face out of this picture for fear of child protective services showing up and cuffing him. he seems so oppressive in this stance.
hullo...not to self = when trying to GET pregnant, it's not cool to already LOOK pregnant.....

oh my gah, allison....WHERE IS THAT SELF-TANNER.....



aaaand...the worst is over! even though...i was supposed to let go of my tummy once the needle's in and i forgot too. hope that doesn't screw things up....

note the death grip, white knuckles in my hand. you can hardly see it, but puffy's got his other hand behind my knees, to steady them because i shake really bad at this point. adrenaline? nerves? fear? .....a flicker of heartbreak....?



aaaaand we take a 24 hour vacation until the next episode.
i take the little disposable needle cap and twist it back on...and it pulls the entire needle out. (getting MORE excited about halloween the longer i think on it....)

no, i do NOT inject all 300 IUs of medicine at once. that's what those little numbers are on the dial at the beginning. the PEN comes pre-filled with 300 IUs. so you set the dose and CLICK once the needle's been injected and it only allows 75 IUs to insert at once. so i get 6 doses out of each pen. unless....you chase air bubbles and subsequently only have FIVE AND A HALF DAYS of meds.

the alternative to the pen, is actually playing a REAL nurse and tipping back a vial, pulling the syringe full of fluid....adding a water based soluble mixture...and taking the chance of ROYALLY screwing it up. and if you saw me in the kitchen -- you'd recognize those odds as pretty darn high.

taking needle off.
and NOT placing it in the RED PLASTIC "BIO-TOXIC" needle bin they suggested. nope. these needles go straight into the trash. bite me. don't go off using my needles and you got nuthin' to worry about. k?



put the pen cap back on and clean up!
this is the happy phase of the injection seminar.



and the kit goes back in the fridge till tomorrow!



wowsers.
never in a MILLION YEARS did i expect this would be my daily routine, but i have puffy to do it with me....and think of the end result!! if not this month...then the next....or the next....

sadly, we (and by WE.....i mean....HE. clearly i didn't draw my belly map very well today) did hit a vein tonight that Dubs hit 2 months ago....so it burned going in tonight worse than the 2 previous nights....sigh. (high fives to my steady camera skills despite a hot poker severing a vein)
i go in to the clinic on thursday to see if it's working!! cross your fingers!!!

fortunately, the air bubble is still with us, snug in the vial...so i won't hyperventilate tonight over impending death.

y'all owe me now....so if you read this....leave a little love so this documentary was worth my time....

now i'm off to lick my wounds, snuggle with puffy, ....and eat ice cream.