shaky hands

Hi all-
I'm so thrilled to find this site. I am a late-30's mom going back to nursing school. I have essential tremor, just like my dad, uncle, grandma - my hands usually have a very mild tremor, however, this tremor can get worse with stress. It gets ESPECIALLY worse when my hands are being watched.

I was a medical assistant years ago and gave injections regularly, even blood draws. Never my favorite thing, but I managed and always did fine with the injections, and usually was fine with the blood draws too.

But I had an awful experience in my last clinical day a couple weeks ago - my instructor was watching me intently as I drew up an IM injection. They were shaking slightly, but got worse as she watched - would have been fine if she hadn't been watching, I suspect! She made a comment about me needing to get control of my hands. That pushed it over the edge, and by the time I went in and gave the shot with her watching, they were out of control. It was awful, awful, traumatic for me. (Shot was in rear, not sure how much patient noticed!)

While I've been on break, I've done many things - including considering dropping out of school! But I think I do have many strengths that I could bring to the field, and I also really think it will be fine if I can just get through the school phase! I have gotten a prescription for propranolol, and even had a visit with a psychotherapist for hypnosis - my main problem isn't the tremor, but the performance anxiety which makes it worse!

But on my down days I think I should just drop out. I did a search on this site and found tons of reassuring stories of folks who've dealt with essential tremor. I'm trying to take strength from those as I go back to school/clinicals next week. I'm used to being a pretty confident together person - this is really hard for me to go back to square one.

I guess I posted this in "nursing career advice" because I wanted to know if folks thought I should just give up now, or keep muddling through. I think the answer is to muddle on, but it's hard to make my gut believe that sometimes.....