Saturday, September 6, 2008

The nursing profession is safe from me...

There must be something I'm just not getting with this syringe thing.

After yesterday's mishap (stabbed twice in the fingers, just trying to get the protective sleeve off the needle, lots of blood and lots of ouch), I decided to look at this calmly and logically. There must be an easy way to expose the needle, right? We see nurses do it in the office all the time--pop off the cap, shoot you up. No problem.

After looking, turning, looking again, I finally gave up on the notion that I could finesse this thing. Out came the needle-nose pliers and crescent wrench:

There! Nursing, handywoman's style. Just think if you were in the doc's office and the nurse had to bring out these tools to give you your injection! You'd run screaming from the room. Luckily, Echo is a good girl (and has the brain the size of a walnut), so she didn't mind the lengths I had to go to, just to get her medicine into the dang syringe. Giving the actual injection is easy.

She's doing a little better today, though nowhere near her normal self. She goes outside briefly to do her business. She's eating a little kibble. She's gotten rebellious about taking the big antibiotic capsules, rolling them around in her mouth and spitting them out on the floor. This is where a bit of grated cheese comes in real handy. Making cheeseballs with clindamycin tucked inside go right down her gullet without protest. Then she lies down on the floor again:

But so far, I'm thinking I'm running at about a "D" average on the nursing competency exam.

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