Needles, Part Two

After my A-fib episode I went on Coumadin. It's a blood thinner, as has been discussed here previously ad nauseum. What we haven't discussed is Lovenox. Lovenox is another blood thinner that is sometimes prescribed in tandem with Coumadin to prevent blood clots in the leg known as Deep Vein Thrombosis, or D.V.T. It is injected subcutaneously (under the skin, not in the muscle). Nobody ever explained to me why I had to be on two different blood thinners, but I would venture to guess that they wanted to make very sure that I didn't stroke out on their watch and ruin their day. Of course at this point I was a veritable expert at the art of self-injection, having been stabbing myself in the belly for a month or so with Insulin-filled syringes. I was not, however, prepared for Lovenox. Insulin syringes come empty and you fill them with Insulin from a small vial. The amount you inject depends on what your blood sugar is, but even if it's quite high, you only use a teensy, tiny drop. That and the fact that the actual needle part of the syringe is very short and also coated with some kind of Teflon-y substance makes the procedure pretty close to painless. In fact, pricking your finger for blood for the glucose monitor hurts more than the actual shot. Lovenox, however, is nasty. It comes pre-loaded in the syringe, and there's a lot of it. The needle is quite long and it takes some time until the entire does is injected. All this was a turn-off, but when I read side of the box in which the syringes came, I almost lost my lunch. In language probably intended to be too sophisticated for the average user (which obviously doesn't include yours truly), it explains that Lovenox is made from "porcine intestinal mucosa". Hmmm. Let's see. Porcine refers to animals of the porcine family i.e. pigs and boars. Intestinal means "of the intestines". Mucosa is simply that; mucus. Okay. So Lovenox is made from the mucus of pig guts. PIG GUTS! I was injecting myself with pig guts! This grossed me out on several levels. Firstly, being orthodox, being helped along with my recovery by Porky Pig was somewhat unsettling to say the least. Secondly, pigs are not known as very sanitary animals (although there are those who maintain that they only roll in their feces-laden mud to protect themselves from getting sunburned, yada yada, yada), nor are they very discriminating in what they ingest. And there I was, introducing their guts to mine. Thank G-d I was only on that horrid stuff briefly. I still shudder when I think about it. Now please excuse me; I'm late for my mudbath appointment. Oink!