The lunchtime zoo

I'm always at Diabetic Land during their lunch hour to take care of Spitfire, and the place never fails to feel like a zoo. Parents all seem to drop by at lunch, the kindergartners are leaving (except for the ones whose parents forgot to pick them up and now we must babysit in the office), and it's recess for rotating grades. Recess means injuries, and at that school in particular, there seems to be no screening process for whom to send to the office for an ice pack. Oh, and one of the secretaries has her lunch break, leaving the other secretary alone to handle the majority of the mess. 

Yesterday, it felt particularly busy, and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off passing out Ritalin, cleaning up scrapes, and calling home for vomiting children, all at the same time in my office. In the front of the office, I could see the secretary having a similar struggle keeping up with everything. A yard duty came bustling in, and ordered me to grab the wheelchair, a kid was down outside. I was unable to just take off and run; I needed to lock up the Ritalin first, and in the meantime the yard duty began complaining that she'd tried calling the office and they didn't answer, and couldn't I hurry up? My thoughts accidentally spilled out of my mouth: "Oh, sorry, we're a little busy in here," I said, not actually apologizing at all. She wasn't fazed by my retort, and as she was walking me outside to where the kid was, she explained the situation: "He fell off the monkey bars or something, I don't really know, I don't know if he's hurt or anything." She had her back to me so she missed the daggers I was shooting her with my eyes. 

I reached the child, who looked happy as could be laying in the bark of the playground. I did a quick assessment, and the student said that he couldn't sit up. I wondered aloud, "Shoot, how will I get you in the wheelchair then?" And suddenly the kid jumped up, dusted himself off, and ran off to be with his friends before I could even get his name. Guess what, yard duty: he wasn't hurt. 

I've used the wheelchair at this site more than any other, and it's usually for things like this: nothing. I'd rather the yard duties err on the side of caution, but on my way out to my next site, the secretaries and I had a little chat: that school is a zoo at lunchtime, and I'd prefer it if there were some sort of screening process to separate the students that need me from those that definitely don't. 

The silver lining: I was able to get some fresh air during recess, and hear my name screamed from halfway across the playground with delight. There's a little girl that I'm pretty sure thinks she is awesome because she's on a first name basis with the nurse, and she couldn't help but show off in front of her friends. I waved back at her, glad my long trip out to the bark box wasn't a total waste.