TGIF

This morning a girl came in with severely chapped skin under her lip, from licking her lips and seeing how far her tongue could reach (she did a lovely demonstration). After searching my office for some non-medicated barrier I could put on it to no avail, I told her she'd have to ask her mom for lotion when she got home. Her response: "My mom doesn't have money, she can't buy anything. She works and so does my dad but they don't have no money ever." <Sigh...> Something to add to my growing shopping list.

Also this morning, a kid came in with a bloody nose. I knew it wasn't his recess, so I asked how it started. He told me he was sitting on the class rug and it started. I asked where his fingers were when it started, and he shrugged; then I asked if anything might have been in his nose when it started. With a sheepish smile he pointed his finger: this was! Well, buddy, that's what you get for sticking your fingers in your nose.

Still this morning, I received an email from a secretary at another site letting me know a parent was none too happy that her daughter came home Monday with a sprain while the nurse had only given her a bandaid. Apparently I just read the teacher's note that said she needed a bandaid and in the whirl of what is often the state in that office, didn't question her for any other injuries; later, mom ended up taking her to the doctor's and getting x-rays. There are plenty of things I can think of in my defense: that x-rays are taken for the most ridiculous of complaints as a CYA thing for the medical office, that you should stop babying your 5th grade daughter, that just because your doctor diagnosed your daughter with a sprain does not convince me she has a serious injury when the injury happened on Monday and she is only coming to the office to ice it for the first time on Friday, etc. Bottom line, still: oops, a big oops in this neighborhood, and I feel pretty crappy about it. Yay... This is perhaps the 3rd time this year that a parent has complained about the healthcare at  that school (though I believe only the first I was at fault), and it's a reminder to me that I do prefer the lower income areas where parents can hardly be bothered to clothe their children, much less complain about the school nurse. Gah.

Though I may not work the longest hours, this stuff is why I get home exhausted, especially by the end of the week. Other nurses have warned me: this job will suck the life out of you if you let it. I haven't even had the energy to touch on what happened Wednesday, but the short of it is that I had a diabetic in my office with a blood sugar of 48, and for the first time heard that this has been a pattern for the last three weeks - once reaching a low of 37 at school. You read that right: three weeks into a very alarming blood sugar pattern, the nurse finally finds out. Go me.

Edit: The mother who was complaining about me, and, possibly, might be interested in filing a lawsuit against the school about the incident, has reportedly explained her obesity by saying, "I had a C-section and when they sewed me back up they put too much air in." That statement made me feel a lot better about her complaint...