Day 5

I have two tiny circular bruises on me from the shots.  The biggest and darkest is actually from my very first shot.  They seem more likely to bruise if they well up with blood when the needle is removed.  To be fair, I don't have that many dots on me having now given myself a total of 8 injections.  Maybe half have been followed by a blood dot?  Oh yeah, in other news I was talking to a friend who did many IVF cycles and she said that she had been told to stay within a two inch radius of the belly button and not to go out to the sides.  Which could have explained why the shot I did further to the side hurt more.  So sticking closer to the belly button it is!

I did the Gonal-F first again tonight.  I was holding it in for the ten seconds and then I moved my thumb and saw it was stuck on 25 again!  So I moved my hand and pushed the plunger more firmly and the last 'click' went and the rest of the drug went in.  Now I know what happened yesterday.  Which makes me feel better about doing the second injection of 25- it was the right thing to do.  Today though, I got it all in, albeit after a bit of a pause.

Anyway, on to the Cetrotide.  Today with pictures!  So first, out of the box we have a sealed container, and an info booklet.  Peeling off the top of the sealed container we have two alcohol wipes, two needles, a pre-filled syringe, and a vial of the Cetrotide in powder form.  Let me preface this gallery by saying that if you are going to take Cetrotide, make sure you read and follow the instructions that come with it fully- this is an abbreviated version and is no substitute for correct medical advice.

 

Right.  The first thing you do is get the little vial of the powder, remove the blue cap, and wipe it down with one of the alcohol wipes.  You can see when the blue cap is removed it exposes a rubber stopper end where you will insert the needle.

 

Next, you attach the big (yellow ended) needle to the syringe.  On a hard surface, you insert the needle into the rubber stopper and then depress the plunger to add all the liquid in the pre-filled syringe into the vial.

Now they say that it dissolves instantly.  But then it says if it doesn't all dissolve you can swirl it gently.  They say not to shake it as that adds air bubbles.  As you can see from the photo on the left, it really doesn't dissolve cleanly.  It takes quite a bit of swirling and scraping at the bits stuck to the bottom with the needle.  And some tapping on the side of the vial.  It's really a matter of being patient.  It does get there eventually, even if I did get a few air bubbles in it (as shown in image on the right) but some gentle tapping sorts those out.

The part that I didn't show is how you are supposed to turn the vial upside down, draw down the needle so it's just in, and then suck up all the liquid.  This is not so easy.  You don't want to withdraw the needle, and you want to get all the liquid, and not fill up the syringe with air.  Again, I think it's more about patience.  Taking your time, and if you get too much air, pushing that back so you have space to try to get the rest of the liquid.  I managed to get pretty much all of it eventually, as well as a bunch of air.  So then I swapped out the big nasty needle for the injection needle (as shown below) and slowly pressed the plunger until the tiniest bit of liquid was visible on the tip.  Ready to inject, and so I did.

Next scan is early tomorrow morning.  I need to get myself to bed to get up early to get across town to the clinic.  I'll be getting more drugs tomorrow as I only have enough Gonal-F left for one more injection at 225 and 2 more Cetrotide boxes.  I will definitely be asking about when possible collection day is going to be.  Lets hope everything has been continuing in the right direction.  I continue to oscillate between being hopeful and being terrified there won't be anything out of this.  Useless, I know.  And I try not to do it, but I don't see how it can possibly be completely avoided.