Carolyn,

I understand you worry. I have been fortunate, Olivia has never had problems with vomiting -- which is one of the big reasons you would have to ever give an injection.

This past April Olivia got the stomach flu. There was no fever, but she couldn’t keep her meds (or anything down). Since she had kept a little bit of her meds down and was OK otherwise, I didn’t give her an injection (long story). Then she spiked a 102 and was getting sleepy (was she just worn out or was it worse!?!) So I called the ped endo on call (of course it was a Saturday). He had me take her to the ER where the IMMEDIATELY knew what to do (without even having a message from the dr that we were coming). Needless to say I was very impressed. Whole process took about 4 hours. On that Monday when I called the endocrine nurse to go over the events, she explained further about the whens and whys of giving it in this situation.

Then in June Olivia woke up at at 2 am with a 103 temp and a hurting stomach -- I knew my time had come. I tried the triple dose by mouth, and needless to say it didn’t work. To help keep her calm I had Olivia help me get the shot stuff together. I broke the first needle not realizing there was a cap over the vial (we use Dex). After giving her the injection, I realized why I put gauze in the shot kit (oh well the band-aide worked). I then called the ped endo on call and I didn’t need to take her to the ER (unless there was a change of course). At her ped endo appointment last week Olivia told the dr how mom forgot to use gauze and forgot to wash her hands.

Even though I had a great ER experience (if you could call it that) -- giving the injection was much, much easier.

I know it sounds trite, but Carolyn, you will know when you will need to give an injection.

Best Regards,

Janet