Wow That Was Quick!!

Yesterday was truly a major accomplishment for me. Like I'm still in such a state of shock right now but absolutely relieved. I went to my blood work and ultrasound at Shady Grove Fertility yesterday and at first they were having serious difficulty detecting measurements. I went home that day expecting to hear I would have to come in again, wait even longer for my procedure and felt very discouraged until I got a phone call at home a few hours later from my nurse....Trigger time!

Now the whole point of a trigger shot is to prepare for egg retrieval. It's the last thing you are pretty much responsible for before the procedure in terms of shots. Now when I got this call I was at first ecstatic! This means I go in for my fertility procedure this Friday morning and then I get to start on my immunotherapy next week!! I was finally getting the ball rolling! And then it dawned on me...this isn't like all the previous daily injections. As opposed to those, this was an intramuscular shot which meant big freakin needle....red flag alarm went off just as I hung up with my nurse.

It took me about an hour to get over my fears of needles just for the daily injections but I wouldn't be allowed to do that this time. The nurse tells you the exact time you have to take it and if you miss your time, you're screwed. I knew my limits and I knew that I would never be able to come up with the strength to do this on time. I looked up at the clock and I had about an hour and a half to prepare myself. I had to come up with a plan and fast!

The nurse who taught the injection class offered an outside source of nurses who do "at-home injections" with a separate fee. I decided to call them up and see if 1) they could make it here on time and 2) if I can even afford it. Right off the bat they told me it was a $130 fee for this one time only shot and I left the conversation there....ridiculous!!

Hahahahaha!!!! No.

Then I had an epiphany! Since, as I stated in a previous post, anxiety is indeed a real thing and it would interfere with this medication, I decided this was an urgent care matter. Thankfully my insurance covers trips to urgent care while I'm dealing with cancer so I was definitely going to take advantage of that. I immediately packed up my needle kit and everything and drove straight into rush hour to get to urgent care. Now I live practically in the middle of nowhere so there would be no turning back...I was definitely going to either have a nurse do it for me or I would have to do it myself somehow while I was there....which was really not an option.

I got there with about 25 minutes to spare and the nurse, let's call her Tina took me right away for vitals (standard procedure of course). I start explaining my life story to her and that this shot had to be taken at exactly 7pm on the dot and I needed help in any way possible. I also mentioned the situation with the nurse who would charge $130 for this and she was completely shocked. She went and got the head nurse who then told me that since the drugs didn't come from my insurance (since my insurance doesn't cover fertility treatment), no one could give me the shot and they could only walk me through it. I started to panic until Tina pulled me aside and said "there are laws and rules but we'll work around it" with a wink.

She sat me by a window in the corner of the urgent care, pulled a screen divider and set everything up. Where it takes me about 5 minutes to prep my shots, it took her 30 seconds. I was in awe. She said to me that I had some time to kill and so she was going to tend to other patients but at exactly 7pm she would "help me" with my shot. As time passed I was just doing deep breathing and calming myself down. When the time came found a spot on my leg to do it (which would have taken me forever) and said "Now you're gonna do this and I'm going to walk you through this as quick as I can" as she was wiping my leg with an alcohol swab. She asked if I was looking and as I was looking the other way I said yes just as the pinch happened and it was done in literally a second.

I was floored. Not only as to how quickly it was done, but how painless it was despite how large that needle was. I kept telling her thank you over and over again and when was heading out she was like "stupid rules aren't going to stop us nurses from doing what it right". Tina was truly an angel I'm so very grateful for nurses like her. I found myself driving home with a little soreness in my leg but I couldn't care less. I was just too thrilled with the thought that, my injections were over and now all that's left is the procedure early Friday morning. I felt so accomplished and proud that I made it that far.