I like to think I'm a badass. A short, blonde, adorable badass, but a badass nonetheless. Sometimes badassery is a conscious choice. Sometimes we just have to deal with the shit we're handed.
When asked about my relatively short, yet illustrious teaching career, I flat-out tell people, "My kids fucking loved me." And most of them, along with their parents, did. I had high standards, I wasn't afraid to push them to recognize their potential, and as I'm sure you've gathered, I'm just fun to be around. The slackers and their slacker parents didn't always love me, but whatever. We all know who was right in those situations.
A little over a year ago (so about six months after I got laid off?), I got pretty sick. The brilliant doctors never quite figured out what was wrong with me, but it was the start of some seriously un-fun times. Whatever was going on triggered flares of my chronic illness and it was thought that one of the medications I'd been taking for years could be making me sick, so away it went. It was time to find a replacement, and no matter how high I raised my eyebrows at my doctor, it was decided that the replacement would come in syringes instead of pills. Yaaaaay.
The drug company arranged for a nurse to come and show me how to inject myself, free of charge, and Nurse Shelly called me to set up the appointment. We chose a Wednesday afternoon, I cleared my schedule, and waited. She called a while before she was supposed to arrive, saying she was caught in traffic in the city, and we could either do it later or reschedule for a different day. I figured I might as well get it over with and told her to get here whenever she could.
She arrived and we took a seat at my kitchen table, where she presented me with a mountain of paperwork. As we were merrily going through it, her cell phone rang and she sighed. "I'm so sorry," she apologized as she looked at the screen. "It's one of my kids." I kept on signing my name on every other line for five million pages as she answered the phone. "This is not an emergency!" she said sternly. "No, I will not buy brownies for you on my way home!"
I don't know what it was about that brief conversation, but something started to click for me. I looked at her. I looked at her full name on her paperwork. "So...do you live around here?" I casually asked.
"Not too far away, I live in [town where I used to work]."
"What school do your kids go to?"
"[Schools where I taught]"
"...Did I teach your kids?"
Just like I had done moments before, she eyed me carefully and then looked down at the paperwork. "Oh! Miss Jentastic! I didn't recognize you!"
"Well, whenever you saw me, I was dressed nicely and wearing makeup and heels. When you come to my house to teach me how to stab myself, you get yoga pants and a ponytail."
From that moment on, Nurse Shelly and I were best friends. She filled me in on how her kids were doing (I'd taught the oldest two) and how much she wanted to kill her now 14-year-old son. "I don't know what happened to him. I'm going to snap one day and say, 'look, I don't think I can even have a reasonable conversation with you for the next three years'."
"You're not the first parent to tell me that. Middle school teachers get a lot of parents wondering where their sweet little babies went and where these monsters came from."
"Do you want him? You know how skinny he is, he doesn't take up much room. He'd fit in that closet right over there. He does eat a lot, though."
"That's really nice of you to offer, but I'm going to have to pass."
She then gave me a hilarious rendition of her son's phone conversations with girls and I asked how the rest of his little social group was doing. I was being honest with her when I told her that his class was a really great group of kids and I'd enjoyed working with them so very much and she told me that I must have had an infinite amount of patience (I got that a lot). Somewhere in there, we started talking about various methods of classroom management and discipline and she told me about the time the (scary strict) social studies teacher made her son's class write letters home about how they had misbehaved for a substitute teacher. I told her that I once had a class write letters of apology to the custodians after they left a mess, but it wasn't her son's class, as his class knew better. "I'm sure your kids told you, I don't mess around," I said. She had zero issues with how my colleague and I had handled these situations, which was so refreshing to hear, as it seems that more parents than not are the "Not my child!" type these days.
Amidst our shooting the shit, we did actually remember that she was there for a reason. After finally finishing up the paperwork, Nurse Shelly pulled out the practice kit. Inside were syringes filled with water and a little foam pad that was supposed to be like my skin. "It's nothing like your actual skin," she told me. "In fact, most patients say it's easier when you finally do it on yourself." Using a pencil to demonstrate, she showed me what I was going to do and the motion I would use. "It's a flick of the wrist. Just like throwing a dart. Go back to your college days, when you were throwing darts at the bars." Nurse Shelly apparently knows me better than I thought.
After flicking my wrist with the pencil, it was time for the practice syringes. I took one out of the pack, uncapped it...and immediately felt nauseous. I was expecting one of those little insulin-type pen things...but no. No. This was a needle. A huge fucking needle. "This whole thing is going in my leg?" I weakly asked.
"Yes. Sorry."
"It's a good thing I'm already sitting down...You don't have to tell your kids about this part."
A few more flicks into the foam and a little more gossip about her kids and their friends, and it was time. I rolled up my pant leg and she showed me how to make a little cushion of flesh for the needle to go into. She also warned me that a lot of patients said the medication burned going in the first time. Greeeeeat. Before I could take the real medication-loaded syringes out of the pack, she stopped me. "Twenty minutes," she said.
"What?"
"Twenty minutes. It takes everyone at least twenty minutes before they can do the real thing. Don't squeeze the syringe too tight. Your hand will go numb, because it's going to take twenty minutes. Keep both feet flat on the floor, because it's going to take twenty minutes. When you make your little mountain for the needle, don't squeeze too tight there, either. Because you'll lose circulation because it's going to take -"
"Twenty minutes. I got it."
"Right. So don't worry about it. I can start dinner, if you want. I've fed babies, I've walked the dog, all sorts of things while people sit there with the syringe. For twenty minutes."
"Eh, it's just a pasta night, I'll just start boiling the water after you leave. But thanks."
She nodded. "Now, you're also going to have little red dots all over your leg by the time we're done here."
"Why?"
"About fifteen minutes in, you're going to very gently put the needle to your skin...and pull it away. Then you'll test the waters again...and pull it away. But it's okay. Don't worry about it. Everyone takes twenty minutes."
"Well, then I guess we might as well get started."
I ripped open the little packet and took out the alcohol swab. I picked a place on top of my thigh that looked pretty good and rubbed it down. I uncapped the syringe, tried not to look at the giant fucking needle and made my little flesh mountain with my other hand.
"Close your eyes," Nurse Shelly instructed. "And take a deep breath."
I did as I was told. And then I opened my eyes and jammed that motherfucker right in there. Nurse Shelly gaped at me in shock and awe. "Uh...wow. Okay. Now just push it down."
"That wasn't so b...okay, it burns. Now it burns. Ow. Ow. Ow. It's burning. Okay, it's done. How do I take it out?"
And since this medication was so super-awesome, I got to do it all over again! Because each dose was separated into two syringes! Fan-freaking-tastic.
Once I was done, Nurse Shelly was still shaking her head and marveling at me. "You are the fastest person I have ever seen."
"I told you I don't mess around. Just ask your kids."
"I should take you with me to all my appointments." She started filling out one last bit of paperwork. "I'll just need to you to sign one more thing."
"Make sure that you write down that I took less than twenty minutes."
"Oh, I am. I definitely am."
"You can tell your kids that part."
We cleaned up, I signed everything else that needed to be signed, and we hugged each other like the best friends we now were before I walked her to the door. Even as she was leaving, she was still surprised at my lightning-fast speed. I am just that spectacular.
In reflecting upon this, I haven't decided if it's a good or a bad thing if your child's teacher will just fearlessly slam a loaded syringe into their leg without worrying about it first. I mean, it's not like it was filled with heroin or anything. It contained magic fluids that were going to allegedly make me feel better and it had to be done eventually, so I just went and got my shit done. It wasn't fun, it didn't tickle, but it is what it is. And maybe if I ever do go back to teaching (highly unlikely in the near future), word will get around. "Don't fuck around in her classroom. She's not afraid to stab herself with giant needles." That's right, kids. There will be no fucking around.
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