As Day Sixty-Seven ends, due to Jenny’s slow progress with her Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, she has been approved to have Botox injections in her right arm. I always thought Botox was what celebrities attempt to use in order to look younger but I was surprised to hear it has very useful medical purposes as well.

The Botox injections in her right arm will help relax the tense muscles which will in turn help the therapists work on her right arm with more ease. I was told that after the Botox injection it would take around 3 days for it to begin having a noticeable effect on her arm then around the 3 week mark is when the effects are at their peak. After 3 months, the remnants of the Botox will leave her system. All of this seemed great as it will help the therapists work on Jenny’s right arm, however, the process of administering the injection was something neither Jenny or I expected.

Today is the day I witness Jenny endure, by far, the most painful experience she has had to consciously go through.

The Botox injection is done at Riverview itself but the room where it’s administered is in the far opposite corner of not just the building but the entire Riverview area which includes 3 separate buildings. I was given instructions on how to get there from her room and even then I had to pause a lot on the trek to get my bearings as I almost got lost. I had to navigate the underground tunnels which connected the three buildings and in total it took 4 separate elevators and 15 minutes to walk from her room into the Botox room.

When we arrived to the room where her Botox was to be injected, Jenny was asked to lay down on the available bed and wait for them to prepare the equipment. It was a very small, unassuming room painted in the usual tame hospital beige with one large window at the far end, one computer desk in the corner by the door, one extra chair along each wall and the one railless hospital bed in the far corner underneath the window. When it was time, the Doctor and Nurse who specialize in Botox injections arrived with an array of vials, needles and a special device that looked like a modified Geiger counter.

When they turned on the device it let out an audible feedback of subtle white noise through it’s internal speaker. Then, from an attached wire extension they moved the wire end to come into contact with Jenny’s right arm. The very moment this wire touched Jenny’s arm, that subtle white noise all of a sudden became an extremely loud, blaring, chaotic jamboree of loud static. It was so shocking both Jenny and I were taken aback. The Doctor told me the device helps locate and measure the muscles that are tense, rigid or strained and as they dragged the wire around Jenny’s right arm the chaotic jamboree of loud static persisted but as it moved over four peculiar spots the noise exploded into a violent frenzy as if a bomb was set off in the room. Those four spots would end up being the locations her Botox injections would be administered.

The four spots were the inside of the elbow where your skin creases, the inner front of her bicep, the back of her bicep and lastly her shoulder.

Once they marked the spots, they told Jenny that this process was going to be quite painful. I instinctively went to the other side of the bed and held Jenny’s left hand. Once they washed the marked areas on her arm, they prepared the vials and needles and told Jenny they were going to do the first injection into her right arm.

I remember I was holding her hand gently when all of a sudden she squeezed it with so much force that my entire body tensed up and as my body tensed up Jenny yelled out in pain.

“It’s so painful, it’s so painful.”

And that was the first shot of Botox, at the inside of her elbow where the skin creases. This first shot would also be the least painful shot.

As they lined up the next vial and needle, they cleaned her inner bicep and told her they were going to administer the second shot.

I felt Jenny’s body tense up, her face scrunched as tightly as possible, her eyebrows furrowed as deeply as they could and as they injected the second needle into her bicep she let out an even louder scream and near the end of her scream it had that strained noise you make when you are about to cry.

The needle, once in, takes about 10 seconds to fully be pressed as they inject the Botox slowly. And during those 10 seconds, all I can hear is Jenny screaming while gripping my hand as tightly as possible.

As they lined up the third needle, Jenny looked at me and said

“Do they really need to do this?”

And that was when I broke. Tears also began streaming down my face. All I could do was stroke her hair, kiss her forehead and say

“This is for the best so that they can keep working on your arm.”

The third needle was injected into the rear of her bicep, and once the needle was in I felt her body convulse and she even began to fight back. As she screamed, the nurse had to hold down her arm as she wriggled to wrestle her arm to escape. I’m on the other side of the bed, feeling her tightly grip my hand as if her life depended on it and all I could do was kiss her forehead and tell her it’s going to be okay. I could do nothing else.

I cannot share her pain.

I can only be witness to it.

Once the third needle was done, Jenny’s breathing was very rapid and I noticed her body was beginning to sweat.

“Please, I don’t want anymore.”

The last injection was the most important, but also happened to be the most painful. I don’t remember what the Doctor or Nurse said to Jenny at this point as my focus was solely on her, ignoring everything else but this Doctor is one Jenny trusts completely and whatever they said to her, she accepted it and prepared herself for the final needle into her right shoulder.

As the needle went in, I saw Jenny do her best to hold in her scream but a few moments later she let it out. And as she screamed she started making a repeated huffing noise.

Tears.

She was crying and screaming at the same time.

A few seconds in she said

“Stop, stop, stop, it’s too painful.”

And she even yelled at the Nurse saying they were holding her down too hard.

And then it was done.

All four needles, done.

Jenny was sweating, her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears, her breathing was quickly being forced and her left hand still squeezed mine tightly.

But, eventually, her left hand relaxed and she began letting go of mine.

Her breathing began slowing and her face began unclenching.

Three days for this to take effect.

Three weeks for the effects to be at their peak.

Three months for it to leave her system.

And in three months, Jenny will have to do this all over again.

Throughout these updates, I often reference to something along the lines of “Jenny’s pain, Jenny’s screams and Jenny’s tears” but when I write that it is specifically this very day that appears in my mind. The screams I heard from Jenny today are the exact screams that echo in my mind whenever I reference them.