And Then There Was a River of Blood

If you’re squeamish, stop now. No, really. I’m being very serious.

To the brave that journey on, may the force be with you.

3….2….1….

Today was shot day. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. We’ve had many shot days.

We alternate sides to keep one side from getting too damaged from weekly shots, and today’s shot was on the left side, which my boyfriend refers to as the “good” side, because typically it gives him less trouble than the right.

I guess our time was up, because it made up for all those good left side shots in one fell swoop this evening.

I don’t even know what happened. The shot was prepared correctly, everything was clean, it was in the upper outer quadrant… the last time we did a left side shot, it went SO well that I made a mental note of where I’d injected (using a tiny freckle on his butt cheek as a land mark). So today I stuck in what I thought was the Left Side Mecca, and ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

Okay, so it wasn’t THAT bad, but when it happened, it seemed that way.

I z-tracked, and stuck. He told me it hurt a little, but he was a champ, so I aspirated and slowly started to inject the medicine. No big deal, until I pulled the needle out, and…. here it comes. This is your last chance to stop reading.

I pulled the needle out and immediately poured fourth a RIVER OF FUCKING BLOOD.

I don’t mean a little blood…oh no. This was a LOT, and it was FAST and immediate. Some of his shots haven’t bled at all, and some of them have bled a little tiny bit….but this…this was….traumatic.

I kept my cool but I let him know what was going on. I don’t think he realized how bad it was until he turned around and looked, but we both kept our cool the best we could and applied pressure and waited for the bleeding to stop (which thankfully didn’t take long). My first thought was that I was about to kill my fucking boyfriend, but he’s fine. He says his left butt cheek is definitely tender and sore, though.

I really don’t know what happened. It should have been a “sweet” spot, and when I aspirated I didn’t see anything. No blood came back up into the T before I injected.

What. the. actual. fuck.

I think I’m taking this worse than he is. I feel SO BAD even though he’s assuring me I didn’t do anything wrong (but obviously I did SOMETHING wrong). He’s been really supportive. It’s just such a shame because we’ve had to many good shots. I was starting to think I was getting pretty good at this whole thing, and then BAM! Blood-pocalypse 2013. So now I’m terrified about his next shot a week from now.

On a positive note, my boyfriend had a lot of other T guys in the area over to his house last night for a bro out, and it was so much fun. A lot of new guys came which was great. There was an even mix or serious talk and laughing. His brother even came by and hung out with the guys for a while. I think it was good for some of them to see a sibling that’s so supportive. We even got to see our friend who came with us on my partner’s followup appointment for his first shot of T in January. His transition is going so well! His facial hair is already coming in really well, and I can tell a big difference in his voice. I was so happy for him that I kept hugging him, which I hope he didn’t think was creepy. Hah.