After a couple of months of hitting this full on, I’m getting the hang of using these acronyms. Some may say that I even sound like I know what I’m talking about….They are mistaken, but at least it looks that way on occasion.
PIO’s are the new fun to help fill the time during the two week wait. Progesterone in Oil injections are fabulous for a variety of reasons. First off is the fact that it is mixed with oil. Now, anyone who has ever cooked anything can tell you that oil is thicker than water. As such, these lovely gems not only require a fat ass needle to allow for the thick liquid to be injected, but despite the fatty needles, it is still harder to push the stuff in. To add to the overall look and feel of awesomeness, the needle is also significant in length. This of course serves an important purpose as the injection must go into the muscle, but man is it an intimidating sight. If you are thinking about how amazing that all sounds, I can confirm that it is just fan-freaking-tastic. An extra added feature is that the preferred target area is the hip, or as I affectionately refer to it as, the “ass shot.” One legit positive of this whole thing is the fact that I only have to poke myself every third day, versus everyday or even three times a day like I had to before. However, even this perk has a drawback…
As described, this injection is a little more complicated than the previous ones. The logistics make it complicated to to self-injections, because although the outer quad is a secondary target area, the ass shot is the sweet spot. Also, because it is a muscular injection, you have to stick it in, pull back slightly to make sure you didn’t take out an artery or something and then have at’er. As such, my dutiful wife was determined to do these injections for me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, but figured it was worth a shot (no pun intended, I promise).
Day one of this new joy, we decided that we should wait until the little one was in bed. She has not seen me take any of the injections to date, and considering the fact that she screams and then growls every time she sees a bug, I figured she wouldn’t react well to large needles. We waited until bed time and then started to prep the goods. My wife prepped the injection for me, so she was exposed to the trauma of that visual for a few more minutes than I was. I saw that thing, and just said “Oh, come on!” My wife was clearly hesitant in her new task. “Ar-are you ready?” she asked with an uncertain tone. I just decided that at this point there was no fighting it and I exposed the fine specimen of an ass that is mine and waited…and waited…after the anticipated stabbing did not occur, I heard “I don’t know if I can do it!” and turned to see my wife with a nervous smile on her face, with needle in hand. The angle that she held it made the needle seem more like a butcher knife than something used for medical purposes. “Just give it to me,” “No, I got it. Just turn back around.” I turned around, bent over, aaaaand, nada. “Just give it to me, I’ll do it myself.” “No, you can’t, I’ll just do it.” We both agreed that this was probably not the best starter needle to work with, and before we could move on to round three of I’ll do it, no, I’ll do it, the bedroom door opened. Our beautiful little girl, in her pajamas looked at us with sleepy eyes and a mischievous grin as she wasn’t quite sure if she was being cute enough or if trouble was coming. Cuteness won as she scolded us in the most adorable tone, “You woke me up.” We apologized, tucked her back in and then we just had to sort this one out. Despite my pants needing to be down for this one, we needed to put the proverbial big kid pants on and just knock it out.
Our true problem solving abilities came to light that night. After much discussion, much whispered discussion that is, a game plan was established. Since I was used to the self-harm that is stabbing oneself with these pokey sticks, bloody javelin in this case, I was going to stick myself with the needle. After the javelin was in, my lovely assistant would step in and take over to do the rest. The needle isn’t so bad when it’s in since you can no longer see the scary part, but getting it in was still a battle. Despite the fact that I had been practiced in this previously, it had been a while and this needle was bigger. There were several pumping motions before I finally went for the quasi-throw technique. This is when I bring it down in such a motion that there really is no aborting. After all that, the stupid thing was finally in and the tag team method worked out.
I shared the same picture of the needle on Facebook that night, as I was still in shock over this new friend that I would potentially be spending 10 weeks poking myself with. Of course my friends that work on the medical side of the house commented and there was a “whose needle is bigger” competition going on. Yeah, yeah…I know, it isn’t used to drain fluid out of my lung or anything, but I still think it is big. This brings us to the drawback of having to only do this injection every 3 days. 3 days is actually a decently long time. Your brain may even forget certain things in that time. Examples of this are the realization that you’ve done this before and it’s not that bad. These are two things that I have to now tell myself every three days as my brain is telling my arm to move and launch the javelin into my butt, yet there is no motion as the arm stays still. One time I even double poked myself by accident because of this hesitation.
Not going lie here guys, needles are right up there with snakes and spiders. I can be around them, I am comfortable with the idea that they exist in this world for a reason, but that doesn’t mean I want them to touch me! If the spaghetti sticks, this is going to be a long 10 weeks of javelin shots.
Adventures of Offspring 