I'LL MAKE IT TO THE MOON IF I HAVE TO CRAWL

This is Lovenox. Prefilled syringe. 60mg. What you do is—you squeeze an inch of skin and, after wiping it with an alcohol pad, you hold the syringe like a dart and stick it straight into your inch-grabbed epidermis. Then you push the plunger down, all the way, until the syringe is empty. Then you pull it out of your skin, push the excess Lovenox out of the needle, and then, in a brilliant design of technological wonder, keep pushing the plunger until a plastic safety case automatically pops up around the needle. Dispense the syringe into the container the docs gave you because they’ll dispose of your used needles for you. You shouldn’t toss used needles in any old regular garbage. That’s dangerous.

Lovenox is like bionic Coumadin. It starts working on newly-formed blood clots within two hours, as opposed to Coumadin, which takes a few days to build up in your system. I’m not a big fan of sticking a needle in myself, but I don’t like newly-formed blood clots, and since I have one, I’d prefer to control it right away. I’ve learned that it’s important to establish your territory with these blood clot bastards. They’ll take over if you let them.

If you’re keeping score at home, this is the second blood clot in a year that’s moved in with me. At least this one had the decency to move into my right leg, instead of my left, so now both of my legs swell and they finally look like they belong together. Before Blood Clot #2: This Time It’s Personal, it looked like one leg was mine and like I borrowed the other one from someone else. Someone else with cankles.

Blood clots are tough motherfuckers. Living with them is exhausting.