Shot Two

Last night, around 11 pm, Shrike emailed to let me know that she might be late getting off work, because of a breaking news story.

Normally, this would just be a bit of an annoyance, but I was due for my second estrogen injection, which Shrike needed to administer.

All the injections are supposed to be done at about the same time of day, "within an hour" of each other. We did the first one around 12:30 or 12:45 am on Sunday (Monday) because we expected her to be home around 12:30 on the other nights.

I debated with myself for a while, and decided that I should just do the shot myself, if she wasn't going to be home by 1:30.

So, a bit after 1:30, I got out the equipment, and drew up the medication. This is easier said than done. The estrogen is pretty thick, too, and the needle is thin, and it's really hard to draw up correctly.

On Sunday we spent five needles before we finally got it drawn up and injected!

So, I got it all ready, pulled down my pants, swabbed my ass, and . . .

I totally chickened out.

I just couldn't do it.

I recapped the needle and put it back in its little plastic sleeve, and called Shrike to see how much longer she'd be.

As it turned out, she was just exiting the interstate, only about ten minutes from home, so I sat on the heating pad (the medication will theoretically disperse more quickly in warm muscle) and waited for her to get home.

When she got in, I lay on the bed, she swabbed me up again, and as I waited for the sting I heard, "Oh, fuck me!"

That's never good.

The thing is, these needles just snap onto the syringes, rather than screwing on, so it's really hard to uncap them without pulling them off.

In trying to uncap the needle, she'd ended up holding the capped needle in her hand, looking at the syringe that was lying on the floor.

So, we started over.

I drew up the medication again, my ass was disinfected again and I finally got the shot around 2 am.

I really hope the timing isn't that crucial.