The games kids enjoy

My 6th grade redhead diabetic is a bashful little guy, but I have him talking far more now than he did back in August. He is on an insulin pump, and his mom packs his lunch. He enters his blood sugar into his pump, the amount of carbohydrates in his packed lunch, and it pops out a bolus amount. I started estimating how much the bolus would be, and he clearly enjoyed it, hiding his pump for me while I tried to come up with an accurate insulin dose. Finally, yesterday, after a month or so of doing this on a daily basis, I guessed the bolus amount spot on. Mr. Redhead was so excited about this! I was too, thinking we could stop the game, but no...Today, he told me that I had to guess every day and once I got enough right in a row, then it wouldn't be fun for him anymore and we could stop. 

Whatever makes you happy, kiddo...

Setting up shop

At one of my new school sites, there's a confiscated Razor scooter sitting parked against the wall. Months ago, a student came in to see me and asked whose it was. "Mine," I replied. "I live here." She looked at me with awe and explained that the school has everything I need: a bed (the cot) in my office, the teacher's lounge has a microwave where I make my dinner, and I never shower. She must have gone back and told all of her friends that the new nurse lives at the office and rides a scooter, because now it seems every time a younger student comes in my office, he or she asks, "Is that scooter really yours?" 

Cheaters

I feel really smug about the fact that I caught someone cheating on their CPR test this week...Don't think you can pull a fast one on me! I teach Heartsaver CPR courses to staff on occasion, and was teaching a particularly difficult student this week. I thought we had a language barrier, but she sure did a lot (a lot) of talking for someone with a language barrier. She wasn't getting things, so when I went to grade her test, the first red flag I had was that she got several right answers. Then I continued on, she missed a couple, and then she missed numbers 5-15...She got the right pattern on the multiple choice answer sheet, but all off by one, and I recognized the pattern. I handed it off to the veteran instructor, told her I thought she cheated, and the lady admitted it. Needless to say, she did not get a CPR card. It's a little scary to think that people cheat on CPR tests. The point of the class isn't to pass the test (especially in this case, the lady was not taking it for a job requirement). It's to learn CPR.

It's December already.

I was going to write that I'm not really sure how this happened, but that's not the case. I know how it happened: I spent most of November getting sick, being sick, and then recovering from being sick. I was told, among other things, that I looked like "death warmed over" on the days that I did make it into work, which wasn't many. Anyway, I only have some sore ribs leftover now and it's back to the grind! At least for three more weeks until winter break. 

On the school front, the LVN that had been assisting me was reassigned, which means I am again on my own for an unrealistically challenging assignment. I can't be in four places at once, managing 5 diabetics takes up a large portion of my day, and my other schools suffer. C'est la vie, I suppose, as I'm not in charge of my assignment and can only do the best I can. Supposedly they are in the process of hiring another LVN so I can get the one that I poured the sweat into training back. 

On the other school front, I will be starting my credential program next year to become a full-fledged school nurse. When I received the welcome letter full of weekends I'd need to be on campus for and a list of textbooks I'd need to purchase, I wondered if I'd really gone off the deep end signing up to get credentialed in a specialty that is probably going extinct. Then I remembered that it will allow me to continue to do what I am doing right now, which is work with kids while being home at a fairly reasonable hour every day to spend time with my own. 

On the home front, with the exception of my daughter spiking her first ever fever last night, things are awesome. I could write a whole blog on motherhood, and join the ranks of mommy bloggers worldwide, but I'll try to restrain myself for now and keep this short. My daughter turns 8 months old Sunday, 2/3 of the way to 1 year. What? I don't know how that happened. 

Kids these days...

They can call 911 without you asking anyone to do so. I was just getting ready to pack up at my middle school and go teach a CPR class for the evening when the secretary told me that someone had collapsed in the girl's bathroom. Envisioning an unconscious student with a head injury, I said if there was a true collapse, we needed to call 911, but I knew the student I would be looking for and had my doubts. Sure enough, I found her leaning against the breezeway outside of her classroom, feigning illness. She was really sick, she said, from drinking expired milk at the cafeteria. 

Her pulse was steady, and I even got her to forget her acting job with some chatter, and she sat in the wheelchair smiling as I rolled her back to the office. I radioed to the secretary that all was well as soon, and explained to the principal, with only a little bit of eye rolling, that the student felt sick from drinking expired milk. (It even gave her a limp, imagine that!) 

So, imagine our surprise when the police showed up minutes later. Apparently someone - a student - called 911 for us. Lovely. I told the police all was well and wished I had taken a snapshot of their faces as I explained this was all over "expired milk." (I know our cafeteria's aren't great, but I assure you, they throw out expired milk.)

The teacher that had reported that the student collapsed had obviously not taken a step outside her doorway to see the student standing in the breezeway, either. 

Trick or treat!

One of my diabetics this year - of my five - is an intelligent and polite 8th grade girl. She seems to enjoy making small talk with me, and we chit chat a bit while we calculate her insulin dose. She surprised me today by asking a question I have not heard in at least ten years: "Did you go trick-or-treating?"

Um...no...I'm the one handing out candy now. I'll take it as a compliment that she had to ask though. Either that or she thinks I'm that weird that I'd do that at my age...

Whew.

I recently committed myself to being a school nurse at least a little bit longer, and then: the 2014-2015 school year has been continuing to happen. This has been the craziest, most stressful year I've ever had, by far. I have answered work emails from home more often than ever, I have screened nearly 60 students for IEPs in 1/4 of the school year (compared to a typical 100-120 for an entire year), and I just can't seem to please teachers or parents. The first aid aspect of my job used to have slow days; now it seems there is a steady stream all day long of pink eye, sore throats, and vomiting, no matter what school site I am in.  August is always a rough month as an employee in the education system, but that seems to be continuing still and it's almost November.

Some highlights off the top of my head:

1. A gnat flying around in a girl's eye. We flushed it out but I don't think I'd ever seen a live bug in someone's eye. 

2. I missed a broken foot, and if there's one thing that makes you feel crappy as a school nurse, it's letting a child walk out the door of your office with a serious injury. In my defense, the student said he was okay and didn't want to call home - and he actually walked out. This was a Friday, Monday I was called into the principal's office and put on speakerphone with the dad, having to answer to him as to why I let his child walk out of my office with a broken foot. Thankfully, the principal (who has a reputation for not doing this for her nurses) defended me, calmed dad down, and all was okay. But an UGH kind of morning that was, for sure. 

3. Spitfire's blood sugars are out of control: her meter cannot even read them, so over 500, on at least 2-3 days per week. 

4. I have been training an LVN to help cover my schools and diabetics, which is incredibly time consuming and after she made what I believe to be a huge mistake, I'm not sure it's at all been worth my time. (This is an in-progress situation, so I will just leave it at that.) If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself...except that that's impossible when your workload is greater than what one human can accomplish and stay sane. 

5. Screenings and more screenings. We need to screen Kindergarten, 2nd, 5th, and 8th grade students, and now that I have three elementary schools and a middle school, that is a LOT of students in my case. I have done a good portion of these, including the 5th grade screenings at one of my school sites that I have been at since I started this job. I met the 5th graders when they were 1st graders, and I recognized more than just a handful of them. It's a good feeling when you see them light up with happiness because they know you remember them.

6. Today I was called in to stand as a witness while a teacher took photographs of a student to provide evidence of physical abuse for a CPS report she was preparing. He was bruised and clearly beaten, a special education student clutching a Clifford book tightly. My bleeding heart nearly bled out. 

7. I screened a girl with Down's Syndrome that I had met once briefly before, several weeks ago. She burst in my door and shouted my name, and the fact that she remembered it just completely made my day, week, and perhaps I will just hold onto that moment for the year. 

I will try to return to regular posting now; this place is a good outlet for me that I've been forgetting about in the whirlwind of things.