Good friends

call you the night before you come over (even if it's 1:45 am) to tell you to bring a container for soup to take home, then tut-tut when they realise you're 44 and have just little plastic bowls not worth messing with (I eventually decided on a flour-sized canister that is stoneware, but has a sealed lid and had just a handful of dried lentils left in it that I could put in a baggie and then wash out the canister--not the best solution for the bus, but I'll be careful and make a note to self to buy a stacked set of suitable bowls for the future).

Better friends don't scream at you when, at 2:15, as they're going to bed, you discover that the insulin pen you have still has a needle on it that didn't twist off with the cap last night, that you didn't notice at the time, and you call your friend with medical training back to make sure that what you think will get any air out will (hey, they specifically say in the instructions not to store it that way, and as he surmised, I watched way too many medical shows in the 70s, like Quincy, MD). Fortunately I'm lucky in my choice of friends, who deals with an anxiety-ridden me on a regular basis with the patience of a saint. Although he did tell me to look it up on the Internet to make me feel better and verify, because he knows I'm neurotic, even though I trusted his answer.

I feel dumb. Not stupid. Dumb. For all my medical-librarian knowledge (which admittedly is primarily orthopaedic), and for all that you'd have to have a lot of air in a syringe and probably a bigger needle, my anxiety level rose, because I'm new to this injection stuff and not quite as savvy about things as I could be. I thought I was right to change the needle, tap a bit, and do an air shot or two, and I was, but I needed confirmation from a better source. So I guess when it comes down to it, I'm dumb and anxious.

Thank you to my friend, who like I said, has the patience of a saint. Having boldly injected myself, I'm going back to bed. Good night.