I had a parent ask me last week if she could bring in some food to keep in my fridge/office for her daughter. Her daughter has anorexia and she would like her to be able to eat whenever she feels like she is hungry. I say sure, no problem. Mom comes to open house last night. "I am bringing in food tomorrow, is that still ok? Me: Sure. Mom shows up in my office today. "I have the food" but her hands are empty. Me: "Great. Bring it on down." She comes back down with one of the secretaries with 6 grocery bags full of food. A loaf of bread, boxes of pop tarts, cosmic brownies, honey buns, ice cream, 6 big jugs of power ade, 12 containers of yogurt, 12 Jimmy Dean frozen breakfast sandwiches, and a giant container of cottage cheese. Oh, and deli turkey breast and pre-cooked bacon. Wha....????
I was kind of flabbergasted and didn't think to tell her 1 weeks worth of food at a time is plenty. I made her take the loaf of bread home at least. So now I have an office full of food.
THEN... I had a student with a broken wrist come in saying he needs his ibuprofen. OK great. How much are you taking, I say. He says 600 mg every 3 hours. I say, are you sure about that? That seems like a high dose. He says yep- 3 of these pills every 3 hours and pulls an OTC bottle of ibuprofen out of his pocket (great!!). So I call mom to clarify dose. She says yes, the paperwork from the ER says 600 mg of ibuprofen every 3 hours. I say, that's quite a high dose of ibuprofen and in order to administer that much ibuprofen I definitely need a physicians order (so I can call and clarify said order!!!). I then explained that the standing orders that I have from the school physician only allow me to give 400 mg every 4-6 hours and since he had ibuprofen 600 mg PO at 0600 today I can't medicate him again until noon. Mom: Well that's just ridiculous. My son is not going to sit there in pain because your school physician doesn't know how to order medication. He doesn't know my son, and I don't think your school physician has ever set foot in your school even!! I know my child and I know all about medicine because I have daughter who is on medication etc etc. What is your fax # so I can have the ER fax those orders to you? He wasn't even supposed to come see you, because you guys make things so hard with your "standing orders".
Me: Uhhhhh.....
So the ER calls me to verify fax #. I ask to clarify the orders while I have nurse on the phone. She says Oh no- ibuprofen every 6 hours, alternating with tylenol every 6 hours so he gets pain medication every 3 hour, which is where I think the confusion happened. But geez!! I'm trying to prevent your son from killing his stomach/liver/kidneys.
Deep breath.....
Deep breath....
OK vent over- these are the times that I miss having a face to face coworker to vent to- so you guy get to read my vents instead.
