Hit Me With My Best Shot

What a week.

Yesterday, I had surgery on my wrist, to correct Dequervain's Tenosynovitis.  Say that three times fast.  It was a little surgery, but I had to go to the surgery center for it.  Seth volunteered to take me, but Jim, ever the gentleman, insisted on taking his woman forth to the slaughter.  Everyone was quite nice as they prepped me.  They told me I didn't have to put a gown on, instead having me put on a "bunny suit", which is code word for waterproof zip front jumpsuit, complete with matching hat and shoe covers.  Jim promptly announced that I looked like a Smurf, which I'm sure I did.  Thank God his phone was dead, or those pictures would've been out there for everyone to see.  I brought it home for Seth, figuring hey, he's in college.  He can do things with a zip front waterproof jumpsuit.  It likely will include his horse head.  What happens at Butler...........

So tonight, I had to give myself my first Methotrexate injection, for that damnable rheumatoid arthritis.  I haven't been doing as well as the doctor wants on the oral stuff, so she changed it to injections and added a malaria drug too.  Reading the package insert on that one is great:  it'll treat malaria, but rabies shots might not work on me.  Chew on that for a while.  That's not the kind of side effects you read about every day.  Add to it that Methotrexate is used for chemo and tubal pregnancies, and it makes my life just that more odd.  It's a darned good thing I have a sense of humor.

I psyched myself up for this injection thing.  I actually told Seth that I was gonna teach him how to do them, because if he wants to go to med school, it's something he should learn.  He thought it was kind of random for me to suggest it and in the end, I decided to just do it.  You'd think it wouldn't be a big deal, because I've been a nurse for 30 years.  Seriously.  I've given shots to probably hundreds of people, and started IVs on almost as many.  I've stuck needles in babies' heads and feet, and everywhere from stem to stern on grownups too.  So what's the big deal?  I have no idea.

I took it all out and headed to Seth's room, because Jim was not gonna be any help, given the level of snoring he was doing.  Told Seth I just needed a little hand holding, and we talked about why I was having to do injections, with a little talk about RA.  Teachable moments, yes.  Delay of game, YES.  He was playing some weird engineering game that I don't understand on his computer, so I laid down on the bed by him and prepared my attack.

Only I couldn't bring myself to attack.  Started to a few times but just couldn't close the deal.  I finally decided that I just couldn't SEE lying down, so I sat on the side of the bed and went for it, straight into the "shakes when I laugh like a bowl full of jelly" area.  You know what I found out?  I give a damn good shot!  I literally didn't feel a thing.  WOOHOO!

So now I guess there's nothing to be afraid of unless my hair falls out in clumps or I get bitten by a raccoon.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.