I could give a shot to an orange, a grapefruit, and a nurse, but I couldn’t inject myself.

I was 11 years old and had just been diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes. I spent the next three weeks in the hospital, where the nurses schemed to teach me to give my own shot. After three weeks of trickery, deceit, and blackmail, they finally gave up on me and told my parents to take me home for Christmas. I saw one of them slip my mom a $100 bill.

First they tried to model how easy it is to give oneself a shot. One-by-one, each of the nurses came into my room and stuck a hypodermic needle in her arm, and then told me I could do it as well. I began to really enjoy this daily game. I asked them to send in my older sister and my sixth-grade math teacher.

Then they attempted reverse psychology: I was to give one of them—the young, wide-eyed, just-out-of-nursing-school neophyte—a shot of saline solution. The idea was that if I could give someone else a shot, I could give one to myself. Really? I was a preadolescent boy. It didn’t hurt me to put that needle in her arm, but I could tell by her expression that it hurt her. She didn’t think it was as funny as I did.

Then they pulled out the big guns: No dessert if I didn’t give myself my shot. But my 9-year-old roommate had just had surgery on both feet, so when everyone left, I took his dessert. I knew he’d never catch me.

Eventually, I was able to give myself my own shot, but I’ll save that for another post. In the meanwhile I did learn quite a bit from my experience. For instance, when you inject an orange with enough saline solution, it becomes a little water bomb—perfect for terrorizing your roommate and your older sister.