Needle and the Damage Overcome

I just had Dan give me my B12 shot. I prepped the needle and he stuck it in the back of my arm. I've been really nervous about this. Last month I had a nearby nursing friend do it for me but Dan wasn't around for a tutorial at the time. I put in a call to her again but decided I just couldn't wait until she was able to come for a house call. So what's the next best thing if you can't learn how to do a routine but potentially problematic procedure from an actual medical professional? You Tube of course!

I watched a few videos and it was kind of amazing that I was able to view the needle going in the skin. This ALWAYS skeeves me out; I even turn my head when I watch medical shows and someone is getting jabbed with a needle. It's really one of the only things that ever stood between me and medical school. (That and the all the darn TIME it takes to get through it)!

After watching a few of these, I realized that none of them were going through the steps of getting the liquid into the syringe. That was to be my job and I remembered something about displacing the liquid with air in the bottle or something like that blah blah blah. But this is the important stuff, getting the syringe ready. I finally found a video that covered all that and I wrote down all the steps.

Then I said to Dan, "If you watch a video, do you think you can do this?"
"This?" He said, pointing to the television showing a program about making whiskey.
"No. No. Giving me my shot."
"Oh, sure.Yeah, no problem."

Turned out to be easier and less stressful than I thought. I'm starting to think that I'll someday be able to do it all by myself; as soon as I get over the ickyness of it. And I might need that to happen sooner rather than later because I think I need to be getting this more frequently that once a month.

I've read about many people who would get them once a week for the first six months after surgery and then taper off to once a month. I just get so darn tired; I slept most of the day for the past two days. I'm disoriented and irritable. It's no fun to be near me. It's no fun to BE me when I'm like that.

There's no doubt I'm vitamin deficient. My skin is terribly dry. My hair is falling out in clumps. My brain functions are skewed. I realized that it's not even a matter of ingestion, it's a matter of absorption. I wasn't even thinking of the fact that I'm not getting as much of the nutrients out of my food as say, a person with a stomach to break down all that food matter. Even supplementing doesn't ensure that I'm absorbing the vitamins. So I've started to take my supplements with every meal, as opposed to just once per day. When I remember anyway.

So I hope this shot gives me some energy back and if I find myself dragging after three weeks, I'll go ahead and take another, right? Especially now as I'm still in the first months after surgery. Maybe I'll even find the nerve to give it myself, without assistance. If I can do that then maybe the MCAT isn't too far behind!