We did intramuscular injections and subcutaneous injection. I hate being poked with needles. My heart rate goes up, I get nervous, and I might actually breath a little fast, but it's never as bad as I'm expecting it to be. Perhaps it's good that my expectations are always so low. It hurts, but not terribly. I think menstrual cramping is worse. It's just that this is a voluntarily accepted pain and it's a foreign, pointy, scary-looking object piercing your skin.
The intramuscular injection needle was LONG. Maybe two inches? Because I try not to look when people are giving me injections, I was under the impression that only part of the needle goes in, but actually the whole needle ends up going into your arm. I was so scared when I found out. In fact, I still shudder to think of it now. It turns out that most people have more than enough deltoid muscle to prevent the needle from getting to bone. Even anorexic girls can get shots this way. I got injected first, and it actually wasn't more painful than the injections given to me by experienced nurses. Then it was my turn to give an injection, and when I actually started concentrating, all I saw was this skin and needle. There was a certain detachment that came from this rather narrow field of vision, and giving an injection was also not as hard as I thought it would be. It also helps that you don't have to push very hard to get the needle in, so it doens't seem like you should be causing much pain. The needle is very sharp. *shudder* I still dislike the idea of getting a length of metal stuck into me.
Next were the subcutaneous injections. They actually hurt more than the intramuscular injections. I was surprised because I figured that getting stuck in the fat shouldn't hurt as much as getting stuck in the muscle, but there you go.
We also learned how to take blood pressure, vitals, and how to do a skin prick to test for blood sugar. My blood pressure was 110/70 (hooray!) and my blood sugar was 119 about an hour after eating dinner (also good).
Oh yeah, in case it wasn't clear, we gave a half mL injection of saline per practice shot, which is why I'm now 1mL richer in saline solution.
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