Manic Monday

We were off for two weeks, although I can hardly say flying across the country with an almost nine month old just itching to crawl was a restful break. I was thrown back into things Monday, beginning with an 8:30 a.m. 504 meeting. In nearly five years, I have never been to a 504 meeting that has started on time, so I didn't sweat running a few minutes late...only to find that, indeed, this would be the one that started promptly at 8:30. Oops. 

The bell system wasn't working at school, but at some point classes started and minutes later, one of the PE teachers was walking a bloodied student into my office. He'd run into a wall, broken his glasses, and had a cut on his eyebrow that dripped blood all over his face, shirt, and shorts. I cleaned him up and we called his mom, who apparently seemed to disregard the seriousness of it, to find someone to pick him up. The student got dizzy, and I called mom back to reiterate that he needed to get picked up immediately. Thankfully, his grandfather arrived before I felt like I needed to call 911, but his grandfather laughed off the injury. I told him head injuries can be serious, handed over a head injury information sheet, and sent them on their way. I found out the next day the student did have a concussion. 

Soon after this, a teacher popped into my office, telling me a student was present that had had mono over the break. Despite what people like to think, mono is not the most contagious thing ever, but before I knew it the teacher was telling me about his trip to England coming up in February and how he couldn't afford to get mono. "Me neither," I said, thinking to myself, "I'm not planning on making out with the student so I don't think it'll be a problem for me." Still, I played the politician's role, listened to his concerns, and called the student in. I talked with the student, told her she was welcome to stay, and told the secretaries about my decision so that when the teacher complained about it they'd have a leg up on it. I can only imagine the teacher's reaction when I sent her back to class. 

At lunch, a severely asthmatic student came into my office coughing, and his inhaler did little to alleviate his symptoms. He's a frequent flyer, always with a bark-like, painful sounding asthmatic cough, and he called his unsympathetic mom, who came to get him at her convenience an hour later, so he could go home and do his breathing treatment. She berated him in front of the entire office for calling her, saying, "We need to get this under control, you can't keep calling me." I nodded in agreement thinking she was talking about his asthma, and then I heard her continue on to say that he just needed to suck it up and stay at school. Um...your kid can hardly breathe, lady. Please take him. Thankfully she did take him this time, but I'm not looking forward to the next time I'm stranding in the office with him. 

I had grand plans to start working on an assignment for my credential program, but needless to say, I didn't get a chance to do that on Monday.