You Got Botulism In My Eye!!!

I did it. I had Botox today, ahem, free Botox. Here is my post I’m Getting Botox!!! I posted earlier this week about this whole ordeal. In a nutshell, my sister-in-law works for a plastic surgeon and on a occasion they give free botox to teach the Residents.

My appointment was at 10:40, by 10:15 this morning I was debating the Lorazepam my Doctor had prescribed to me for anxiety before interviews and if I should take it. I started flipping out questioning ‘do they inject it into the bone or is it a filler?’ I couldn’t remember and the thought of having it injected into my bone, which I guess would be my skull now that I think about it, was freaking me out. Ok, now I feel stupid.

I met my sister in law in the lobby and she escorted me to an examining room. A few minutes later 4 people came in all dressed in scrubs. It was clear who the medical students were as they were noticeably younger. One was Asian with an adorable pair of glasses rimmed at the top in gold. The other one was an Indian gentleman who had the social graces of a wet poodle. The third Doctor was probably a young thirty something, I’m guessing the resident and lastly we had the fourth Doctor we will refer to as Dr. Curly Q as he had the unfortunate luck of having naturally curly hair cut short.

The first part of the procedure was one of the doctor’s drawing on my forehead with several blue dots. Next they gave me an ice pack, I guess to have some sort of numbing effect?

I wanted to check out their drawing skills so I took the ice pack off, walked up the mirror hanging on the door and mildly flipped out. The blue dots had all smeared turning the 12 dots into long blue, vertical lines. In my mind this was the equivalent of losing your road map and we needed to start over. They assured me this wasn’t the case and they knew where they needed to aim. God I hope so.

The time came for the procedure. My sister in law had left the room and they weren’t going to start this without her holding my hand.

“Can we get her back in here?” I said jutting my chin to the door. 30 seconds later, she returned.

They lay me down and I closed my eyes, holding my sister in law’s hand.

First polk, not bad. Suddenly I felt something drip-in-my-eye…..

“Oh my God you got Botulism in my eye!” I said trying to remain calm but call out the fact a toxin had just entered a place it probably should not have.

You would have thought I was at the dentist and they had accidentally squirted water from the water pic on my face because the doctor said, “can we get some gauze for her eyes?”

I felt a strip of gauze being placed over my eyes. About 20 seconds later, I felt a cold drip in my mouth.

‘Oh my God, I have Botuslim dripping in my mouth. I have Botulism, dripping-in-my-mouth!’

“Oh my God you dripped it in my mouth!” I said not wanting to move for fear they would now stab my eyeball with the level of precision we had going on here.

“Am I going to get sick now?” I said making every effort not to move my forehead.

Chuckles came from the other side of the gauze draped from ear to ear.

“No, no. Hey can we get gauze for her mouth as well?” I heard in that same calm voice. Obviously this has happened before but this was ridiculous. This resident needed to get a drink because his shakes were out of control and not going to go well for the rest of my forehead.

They continued to stick me. It didn’t hurt, just if you were to pop a painful zit and dig your nails into your skin a little too hard.

“Are you done?” I asked no one specifically half way through.

Chuckles, “no”.

6 pokes later, “you guys done yet?”

“We’ll be done,” he said clearly focusing on something, “when we are done.”

I just fake laughed.

After about 3 minutes, I was done. My chair was pushed up and I was presented a mirror and an ice pack.

To my disappointment, the mirror showed a mind field of little pink anthills and blue dots. I knew I wasn’t going to have the forehead of an 18 year old but I was expecting this debacle.

“Can I please have an alcohol wipe,” so I can suck on it.

One of the residents handed me 2 little white packets. I ripped one open and began to swipe my head with gusto. I couldn’t go back to work like this.