Don’t Get Testy(sterone) With Me

(I’m a 17-year-old female. I haven’t started university yet but I study medicine, specifically infectious disease, on my own time because I find it interesting and I hope to go into the field when I go to university. I help my neighbor with her animals. One day one of her cats is attacked by a different neighbor’s dog and injured. Unfortunately the cat bit me very deeply several times on my finger when I was holding her to help examine her and my father takes me to the ER. This exchange happens when the nurse comes in to give me precautionary rabies vaccine and immunoglobins.)

Nurse #1: “All right, let’s get this over with. I’m going to be giving you a shot now. It’s to make sure—“

Me: “That I haven’t been exposed to rabies, and if I have been it will prevent it from infecting me.”

Nurse #1: “Right. I see they already explained it to you.”

(I see her start to draw up the vaccine. I’m a little concerned when she has trouble right off the bat, struggling to pull it up into the fairly small needle.)

Me: “Um, the vaccine shouldn’t be that thick, right?”

Nurse #1: “Sometimes it is a little harder.”

(She turns the vial a little to get a different grip and I am horrified to see that it is not, in fact, the correct vaccine. She is trying to pull up testosterone.)

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t think that’s the right vaccine.”

Nurse #1: *ignores* “Ah, there we go. Now please roll up your sleeve. We can do this on your shoulder.”

Me: *moves away from her slightly* “Ma’am, I saw the vial. You should be giving me ImoVax or RabAvert. That vial is marked testosterone.”

Nurse #1: *gets red faced mad* “Now listen here, missy, I know what I’m doing. Now come here!” *literally lunges at me with the needle*

Me: “DAD, I NEED SOME HELP!”

(It took my father and two other nurses to get Nurse #1 to put down the syringe and actually look at the vial. Thankfully I got a different nurse to give me the right vaccine and immunoglobins.)

Nurse #2: “I’m sorry about that. She’s being let go in about two weeks and she’s been acting… erratic. She won’t be in the ER after this.”

Me: “Thanks. Do you think I could… see the bottles this time?”