Pokey pokey

Yesterday morning was an appointment for a blood draw.  They were testing the LH levels in my blood in order to confirm the dosages I should inject myself with starting that night.  We got there just in time for our 8:15 appointment, even with stopping to put a few gallons of gas in the car because I forgot how low it was.  We had to wait for nearly 20 minutes before the nurse came back to grab me. She asked on the way back to the phlebotomy lab if I’d had any water today. I hadn’t because I was in such a rush to get out of the house.  She gave me a water bottle and told me to drink it.  After drinking about half the bottle very quickly, she started to look at my arm to see if she could see a vein.  She poked my arm but didn’t think it was going to produce enough, so she took the tourniquet off to start a new poke. That sped up the flow and she got what she need without poking me again. Yay!  That was everything for the appointment; they will call with the results that afternoon.

First of many early morning appointments

I got the call in the afternoon that my LH level was just above 1, which is what they want to see.  So my paper with the dosages that I’d gotten earlier in the week still reigns true and I was supposed to start those that night.  We had already made plans to go over to Bill and Rachel’s Saturday evening to watch the new season of Dr. Who premiere.  I took everything I needed for the injections over there so I could do them at the right time.  I decided 7pm ought to be a good time for the next few weeks. So around 7, I got everything out. Spencer helped me with the directions and I prepped the injections.  We took everything one step at a time.  I did the Gonal-F first; I just dialed up the dosage and put a needle on the pen.  Then pushed the needle in and pushed the button. The pen did all the work. After I the pen finished the dose, I pulled it out and capped the needle.  That shot didn’t even hurt.  I was kind of excited.  The menopur was more complicated because I had to mix it myself.  I got out the new syringe and put the mixing needle on it.  I used it to draw out 1cc of the sodium chloride solution and inject it into the powder.  I swirled it around and then drew it out of that vial and injected it into the second powder vial.  I took two doses of menopur; so once I was done with the second powder vial, I changed out the mixing needle for the injection needle.  I felt like a lost a little bit of the dose because of my inexperience with the syringe; I think I got enough of it though.  This needle was slightly bigger than the first one, but it still didn’t hurt going in.  Once I started to push the plunger down and insert the menopur, that burned a little.  I read somewhere that it burns because the sodium chloride, but who knows.  This shot wasn’t too bad either.  Once I was done with it, I capped the needle and threw it out in my sharps container.  That was it. I cleaned up all the wrappers and was all done.  Time for ice cream, which is my reward for needle pokes.

My daily medications

 

Today’s injections were a tad different.  Now that I had done it once, I felt more comfortable prepping the injections.  I feel like I did a better job of that.  But the left side of my belly doesn’t like the needles as much.  I felt the needles going in today. L The medicine burned still going in too.  I hope this was just a fluke and they go back to being nice and easy like yesterday.  I was so pumped at how easy it was yesterday, but I’m starting to lose the excitement and confidence since today’s shots were worse.  I guess I’ll know more tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll get some numbing cream or ice my belly first.  I do more shots on Monday, then go back for another blood draw on Tuesday, where I get my new dosages depending on how I’m responding.