Post Remicade - Part 2

Posted by iKan2

So, since I decided to give the two shoots in my thighs, I gathered everything together and took a seat beside the vials, the syringes, and the alcohol wipes. I figured it would be easier to grab a chunk of my thigh muscle so I could stick the needle in to it.

The first step was preparing the syringes. As you've seen in the movies or on television, I soon discovered that there's a good reason why they always show people filling a syringe with the vial of medicine upside down. First, one of the vials was too tall for the needle to reach the liquid, so the only way to get it to the top effectively was to turn it upside down. Plus I soon realized that is was also important in getting the syringe full of liquid instead of air. So with both syringes full and all of the excess air squirted out of them, it was the moment of truth.

Without thinking about this too much, I proceeded to sit down and rip open one of the alcohol swabs. I chose a location on my right thigh and pinched it between my thumb and forefinger with my left hand. I put the needle to my skin and begin to push. As you might realize, this was the "wrong way" to do this. Thinking back, I should have stabbed it into my leg, but, like I said, I wasn't thinking too much about what I was doing in hopes I wouldn't recognize what was going on and begin to freak out. It was weird, as I pushed, my skin dimpled in refusing to let the syringe pierce it, at least until the force was too much and it slid into my thigh. You know that part didn't even really register, it was only as I begin to push the plunger on the syringe down and begin the injection process did it hurt. Then it hurt a lot. I immediately thought to my self, "Oh my-freaking-god, this totally sucks." The pain was pretty intense.

I was instantly swept back to when I was 9 or 10 and the summer that I contracted  the "kissing disease," mononucleosis. At the time we were still using the Tricare facility near home for all of our health care. When I got sick, my Mom took me there, where a blood test confirmed the diagnosis. The first step in treatment involved an injection of penicillin. I remember the doctor pulling out this huge stainless steel syringe and filling it upside down with the penicillin. He had me drop my pants and, you guessed it, proceeded to give me the shot in my right thigh. At first he jabbed the needle in, and that was okay, but when he shoved it in down to the hilt of the syringe, I recall my Mother saying, "He's going Doctor!" Everything got fuzzy and I turned pale white. When I regained consciousness I was leaning against a wall on the examining room bed I was sitting on and I was covered in a cold sweat.

So I finished the injection, and with my thigh throbbing I stood up. I had already broken out into a cold sweat and I was already feeling a little dizzy. So I made my way over to the living room couch and laid down, and while I didn't blackout I was woozy for a moment.

After a few minutes, with my head a little clearer, I  went back to my chair and repeated the process with the other syringe and the other leg. After the second injection, I was a little better prepared and the needle went in quicker and the injection didn't strike my system so violently. However, after both of the injections I was still feeling a bit woozy, so I retired to the bedroom to close my eyes for a while.

While I'm sure that anywhere I would have given myself the injections would have hurt like hell afterwards, I realized that having both thighs throbbing with pain, sort of made walking a bit of a challenge. As you can imagine, it's kind of hard to limp with both legs.

Looking back, I probably shouldn't have been so gung-ho  on shooting myself up with these drugs. Again, my thinking was they arrived from my Gastro after the treatment, so she must have meant for me to use them. It turns out though, that it was all a mistake. The medicine that I received was, in fact, the pre-medication that I'm given prior to my Remicade treatment. Some how an extra order was made to the VA pharmacy and they were dispatched as ordered.

In the end, I guess it's true "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." I now know how to give myself an injection, so I can start giving myself my B-12 shoots as prescribed. Before I was always dependent on a nurse at the VA to help me out. Although, when I do try the first one, I think I'll try for my upper left arm instead of my thigh. While it was nostalgic to revisit my penicillin  injection of long ago, I'd rather not return there anytime soon.

0 comments:

Post a Comment