A few months ago, I typed about where/how to secure the Vyalev pump on your person. Now it’s about time I addressed where to stick the other end.

But first, Lemmy Kilmister give ya a few details you may not already know. First off, the pump itself does not connect to the body. Rather, there is a very narrow (but sufficiently lengthy) tube that connects to the pump at one end, and to a cannula at the other. This canoodler attaches to your skin, where it uses a tiny needle to puncture a tiny hole in the skin. It also lays down a ring of serious adhesive to make sure that canoodler is NOT coming loose. The manufacturer recommends changing the cannabis and the tube every three days. And lemme tell ya folks, even after three days, the adhesive often makes it quite difficult to remove the cabana.

Now, the manufacturer advises attaching the canoodler to your belly fat, at least an inch from the bellybutton. They also recommend rotating the canoodler each time you stick a new one in yourself, similar to how you rotate tires or crops. But I quickly found that each time I removed a canoodler, a hard “nodule” was left under the skin. This, I confirmed with my medical team, is a deposit of the liquid medicine that (for whatever reason) didn’t get absorbed into the skin. Some of these nodules dissipate into the skin within a week or so. Others persist for months.

When choosing a site for insertion of a new canoodler, it is critical that you first feel around to make sure there are no nodules remaining in the area. If you insert a new canoodler on top of an old nodule, it freakin’ HURTS. ‘Tis a joyous blend of piercing pain and searing pain that won’t soon be forgotten.

After a couple of months, I was running out of “real estate”. There was virtually nowhere left on my belly that didn’t have a nodule under it. So, I convened my medical team. They checked me out to make sure none of my injection sites appeared to be infected, confirmed that the nodules are normal, and advised that the canoodler doesn’t actually have to go on the belly. In fact, it was recommended that I put the canoodlers on my back if possible.

Well, I don’t bend that way! But I have since been putting them on my sides, twisting my torso to get them as far as possible toward my back. This seems to work well. Injection sites on my sides seem to produce much smaller nodules, which also seem to dissipate much faster. And as long as I hold the applicator gently against my skin (not exerting any pressure), there is no pain at all, even at the moment of injection.

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Having said all that, I experienced some extreme nastiness early this week. Somehow, the canoodler and/or the tube got torqued while I was sleeping, resulting in that same searing / piercing sensation that I mentioned earlier. No amount of re-positioning myself on the bed helped. Finally, I made the executive decision to pull the plug. I wrenched the canoodler offa me, turned off the pump, and went back to sleep.

When I woke up, the pain was still present all around the area where the canoodler had been (on the left side of my torso ). Anytime I tried to twist, bend, or stretch, the pain flared up sumthin’ fierce. It was so bad, I was completely out of commission for a day and a half. Just laid on the couch playing video games the whole time. As luck would have it, though, National Video Games Day happened this week, so I had planned on wasting a day on video games, anyway.