24

My phone rang on Wednesday at 4:15, just as I was kicking up my feet for my after-school snack. It was the district office calling, and my blood pressure skyrocketed and I anxiously waited for the voicemail. It was someone in Special Ed, calling to tell me about a student that would be starting at one of my schools tomorrow. I am not exaggerating when I say this was what she said: "This girl has something wrong with her neck and she can easily get hurt and it may be fatal, do you think she should start kindergarten tomorrow?" Great. I had a new girl who was probably going to be dying under my watch. Since I've learned it's best to collect all the information before freaking out, I told the Special Ed clerk that I'd call the mom and then decide if I thought she should start school. The clerk told me that she was leaving in 15 minutes, but I could call her in the morning about the issue. (It was not easy to bite my tongue on that note - did she realize she was calling me on my off hours, and telling me to call a parent on my off hours?) The mom answered her phone, and come to find out that the girl does have dwarfism, and does need to be careful with her neck - no trampolines - but other than that she'll be okay at school. Besides that, she had already discussed this with the teacher and principal (way to be the last to know). Disaster averted. I emailed the SpecEd clerk and told her so - email, because she'd left for the day. 

First thing the next day I get to frantic work in my Thursday school, catching up on lost time due to something that had eaten up my day there earlier in the week: first aid, denying ice packs to the frequent fliers, color vision testing, diabetic checking, the usual. I went to my next school to talk with the teacher of the dwarf kinder girl, who is totally competent and has things under control as usual. Phew. Did some hearing screenings and wolfed down lunch in between screenings. Then it was onto my next school, where Tdap exclusion day had arrived: no Tdap shot, no school. We sent home 9 students, which I think is about 9 too many, but less than we might have had to. Last was an IEP meeting for an epileptic kid. I don't often get invited to these things, but they wanted me to be present to discuss safety issues for him on the bus and in the classroom. I crammed immediately before the meeting using Google, and then went and then pretended to be an epilepsy expert at the meeting (and I nailed it, if I do say so myself)...and then sat through another two hours of having to repeat myself several times, as well as listen to totally nursing irrelevant things about his academics. Gah. 

That was more work in 24 hours than I've ever had to do for this job, and more than I ever want to again. Between Epipen madness on Monday, an incident on Tuesday that sucked up my entire day plus some of Wednesday, and then potentially dying girl and meetings that go way too long...thank goodness I'd already asked for Friday off, and I might just be sleeping in on Monday a bit too. Goodnight for the weekend!