Well, today was the day; I took my first injection. It's a little scary doing all of it for the first time. I'm not quite confident in the procedure, though I understood exactly how to mix it all together. Here's how it works... since it was the first time to use the pen, I had to prime it first. It has a dial (the white end on the right in the pictures) with measurements on it. You line up your dosage amount and pull the end until it stops clicking. You attach a needle (on the left end in the top-right pic). You can either inject this now, or if you want to inject yourself only once, you can mix it with the Luveris vials (the nurse told me I could do this).

The next thing to do is grab the 3cc syringe which already has a 1.5 inch mixing needle attached to it. I remove all the sterile water from one vial (1cc) and also injected this into the vial of powder. Just injecting the liquids into this vial is enough to mix the powder - it's so fine. If it's not mixed enough though, you just lightly swirl it and that's enough to mix it - don't shake it. Then, turn the vial with the syringe still in it upside down and pull out every last drop of liquid you can into the syringe. I pull a little bit of air too to make sure I don't have any medicine left in the mixing needle since I have to remove it now, and dispose it in the sharps container.

Lastly, you take the small 1 cm injection needle and attach it to the end of the syringe. It is quite thin. This is when I squeeze the air out until I see one drop come out.

Now for the hard part. I pinched my fatty tissue 2-inches to the side of my belly button, I aimed the needle, and. let. it. hover. there... I couldn't muster up the courage to stick myself. I never watch when I get flu shots or my blood drawn. Needles are such foreign objects that don't belong in my skin, it really bothers me to see them. I'm not scared of them, it's just really discomforting to watch them penetrate my skin - it just seems so unnatural. So, I called my husband into the room. He reread the injection instructions to make sure he didn't do anything incorrectly, pinched my skin, I looked away, he counted down from 3. 2. 1. ...was that it? I turned back to watch him finish emptying the syringe and pull it back out. Just a tiny droplet of blood appeared and I wiped it away with the gauze. That was too easy, I almost didn't feel it!

I think I'll ask my husband to do it once more tomorrow while I actually watch it this time. Then, I think I'll be able to do it on my own after that.

A comment I received from my AED Case Manager, Helena, that I thought I would share: "I really enjoy reading all your stories. I used to teach donors for injection. But it is interesting to see how people felt when they are actually doing it. Just a little suggestion, you can use gauze to press (pressure from your fingertip) the needle hole after pulling needle out, and keep pressing for about 30 seconds then release. By doing this, you can avoid blood drop coming out from the needle hole, as well as skin bruises."