Cellulitis

The injections that I need to have every day are intramuscular. Basically, I have to get a shot in the butt every morning and twice a week in the evenings as well.

Joy.

I don’t mind needles (which is a good thing considering how many of them I have been and will be seeing) and I would have given the shots to myself, but the angle makes it impossible. So, my lovely husband was roped into service.

Now, while I have nothing but good things to say and nothing but positive experiences with both our fertility clinic and with our fertility pharmacy, the injection training that we received is the one exception. Because we do not live in Boise, we were given some diagrams and some videos to watch on how to administer the daily shots. The one thing really lacking here was the location that they should be given.

We were giving them right in the center of the butt muscle- right over the sciatic nerve.  While we were lucky to not have that cause a problem, we ended up with a case of cellulitis- an infection at one of my injection sites characterized by severe pain, swelling, redness, and fever. I ended up in the ER early one morning to have it checked out. These infections can move very quickly and cause severe complications if not dealt with appropriately; when my temperature went up two and half degrees, we loaded up the car and set off for the hospital.

However, we were both terrified that whatever drugs they would give me to combat the infection would hurt our embryos and cause us to lose what we hoped would be a pregnancy so soon after our transfer. Brian was terrified I would end up having surgery and be in the ICU suffering and dying from complete and overwhelming sepsis.  (See, I am not the only one who worries about the worst-case scenario.)  He blamed himself because he gave the shot. The ER doc said that it could happen to anyone.

I must confess I was sorely disappointed when I entered the ER that early morning. Where were the screaming, wounded victims of horrific accidents? Where were the legions of surgeons waiting to catch a cool case? Where were the armies of doctors and nurses, coated in bodily fluids, yelling for help?

Okay, maybe I watch too much Grey’s Anatomy. 

There was just one lonely registration lady who promptly checked me in and transferred me to another room. The ER doc decided not to cut into my infection, much to my relief. He did put me on a battery of antibiotics to fight the bacterial infection, but he called Dr. Slater first. She assured us that the embryos would be just fine.

Sigh of relief. 

The drugs made me feel absolutely awful, but eventually the infection went away.