Steroids - day 1

Well after many phone calls and misunderstandings yesterday I arrived home at just after 4pm to a phone call saying the man from the pharmacy was outside my house with the medical supplies, closely followed by a call from the home health nurse to say that she would be there by 5pm to administer my first dose. An hour earlier when I left work it was all still being worked on!

So I've got 2 bags of medical supplies sitting in my kitchen, filled with syringes, gloves, tape, needles, tape, heparin, saline and other assorted medical stuff. Then I have these very strange looking brown balls of medicine sitting in my fridge.

The nurse came right on time and after about 10 minutes of looking finally found a vein that looked good (my veins are deep and hard to find). It's in the back of my left hand, stung a little when it went in but just for a second. Tape goes over the IV to hold it in place and the tubing is taped up my arm. The meds get hooked up and away we go! Those balls of medicine are actually pretty clever little things, rather than being hooked up to an IV pole they have their own little pump so you can walk around with it in your pocket (or stuffed down your shirt it you're like me and didn't have any pockets). It slowly deflates as the medicine is pumped in and 90 minutes later can all be disconnected. Then it's time to flush the line (see already getting the medical terms) with saline and then with heparin to stop it clotting.

The actual treatment was non eventful apart from a disgusting metallic taste in my mouth that lasted up until I went to bed. I couldn't even eat my very favourite strawberry ice lolly because it just tasted yuck. I've read up on the Internet and the advice seems to be to suck sour sweets to take the taste away so I'll try that this evening.

The boys came and asked what the medicine was and what the stuff hanging out of my hand is but they're being very good, didn't even try and pull on the wires, which I'm most surprised about.

This IV will stay in for 3 days and then they'll insert a new one for the last 2 treatments. I am allowed to remove it if I really want to or if it looks irritated but that just means I'll end up with even more needle sticks so I'm trying to keep it in. I've already made 2 people at work queasy when they asked why I had a bandage on my hand and I told them I had an IV in - hee hee they shouldn't ask if they don't really want to know.