Friday night is shot time for me. My drug of choice is Avonex, which I’ve mentioned before. I’m not sure how helpful it is to document this process for other people suffering from this disease, but perhaps for my friends without MS who read this blog (I think there are a few of you), it will be a helpful illustration of what I have to do once a week.
Step 1! Get the dose out of the fridge. It needs to sit out for about half an hour to get to room temperature, but it can't sit out for more than 7 hours. I don't know what happens after that, though. I usually do my shot late at night, between 10 pm and 1 am.
Step 2! Set up shop. I drink some water (it's important to stay hydrated to combat the flu-like side effects), take two Advil, and set out my ice pack, alcohol and gauze pads, band-aid, needle and pre-filled syringe.
Step 3! Record the date, time, injection site (right or left top thigh, alternating weekly) and any notes about how I’m feeling, what I’ve eaten or anything else that might affect my next-day side effects.
Step 4! Ice my thigh while getting the rest of the stuff ready. The shipments I get every three months come with a bunch of ice packs, so I will never be without. I try to push ice packs on my friends (They’re great for camping! Take some!).
Step 5! Needles. Avonex comes with a 1 1/4" needle. I special order the the 1" needles because, seriously, I don't need that much poking.
Step 6! Make sure the syringe contains the correct dosage of .5 ml.
Step 7! Snap the end off the syringe. This part used to make me nervous. I was afraid I'd break the glass syringe when snapping off the end.
Step 8! Affix the needle to the syringe.
Step 9! Clean the injection area with an alcohol pad. The injection site is the part of my thigh between one hand-length from my knee and one hand-length from my hip.
Step 10! Dry the area with a gauze pad. If alcohol is left on the surface of my skin when I do the injection, it will sting. Lots.
Step 11! Stall. I usually count, “1, 2 … 3! …1, 2 … okay, this time I’m going to do it. 1, 2 … for real, this time… 1, 2 …”
Step 12! Suck it up and do it. I like it to be quiet when I do the injection. I think it helps me face what I need to do. It doesn't really hurt that much, unless I screw up, but the anticipation sucks.
Step 13! Apply pressure with gauze to staunch any bleeding.
Step 14! Done! Affix a band-aid.
Step 15! Curl up on the couch and continue watching whatever I’m watching on the TV until I doze off. Tonight it’s “The Machinist.” Christian Bale really needs to eat a sandwich (or 12) and get a grip. Jeeze.
