May 31 Clinical Trial (Week 0) : FSGS Sucks

I seriously can't believe that a whole week has gone, but better late than never, right?  Last Tuesday I "officially" started the drug part of the clinical trial.  I went back to Cincinnati so that they could teach me how to do the injections, and thankfully, my friend Rebecca came with me!
I'll admit, I was a bit over-confident in my whole ability to give myself a shot.  I sat and listened while the lovely Christine told me what I needed to do.  I took a DEEEEEP breath and pushed the needle in, and I thought that was going to be the worst part.  I was wrong.  The Humira BURNSLIKEAMOFOGOINGINANDTHEREISSOMUCHOFIT!!!!  It burns..fiercely, and there's a LOT of it...0.8ml, to be precise.  It doesn't seem like much, but it IS quite a bit, especially when it's going into the tissue right under my skin, and not in my muscle.  I got about 0.2ml in, started screaming and begged, literally begged, Christine to push it in.  After it was done I started getting dizzy and nauseous and super sweaty, so I laid down for a bit.  It wasn't a reaction to the drug, rather from the sheer pain of getting it injected.  Needless to say, I'm glad that I only have to do this every 2 weeks, and I'm even MORE glad that I work at a place like Lilly that has an Employee Health Services department on my site that will give me the injection.  Whew.

And, instead of Skyline Chili this time, I treated myself to one of my happy, although super-dangerous places, for me:

 I have to go back next Tuesday for lab work, and they're going to give me the injection there again.  I have to bring the vials of Humira, the bottle of Lipitor that's provided as part of the study, as well as a first morning urine sample.

I'm so happy that this has finally started.  I am holding no hope that it will do anything for me, but if it does, that would be AWESOME!!!