ohiobobcat

Good luck! ?

I am charge nurse at my camp. The camp director, camp physician and I met a few weeks ago and decided we will not be operating our typical overnight camp this Summer. We serve a very medically vulnerable population with a complete camper turnover every week. We just can't/won't do it this year. We will run our "Adventure Day Pass" which was very successful last Summer (our camp serves mostly campers in our home state) and our online Summer camp, which was also very successful and well-recieved. I will be there for the Summer as the sole "medical" person onsite for first-aid/screening purposes.

I got my first Moderna on 1/12 and my arm was sore immediately, that lasted for a couple of days, along with some swelling around the vaccination site. I got my second Moderna on 2/8 at around 3 pm. I noticed some numbness in my L hand (vax arm) that evening, my arm became more sore as the night went on. It woke me up a few times. I woke up the next morning with a very sore arm, like so sore I had a hard time lifting it above shoulder level. I had no other symptoms so I went to work. By 10 am I was feeling pretty crappy. Low grade fever of 100 F, achy and sore all over, pounding HA, swollen lymph nodes in my neck that made it hard to turn my head and hurt to swallow (but not a sore throat). I was cold and could not warm up (no rigors though). I also had occasional nausea. I went home and wallowed in my misery and electric blanket all day. Around 10 pm I finally caved and took a 1000mg of Tylenol. By 11 pm I was feeling much better and was able to fall asleep. Woke up symptom free other than a mildly sore arm the next day and have been fine since. I would do it all over in a heartbeat too!!

Another option is to check with you state school nurse consultant and see if your state is doing anything to help supply schools with PPE. Cloth face coverings are what is recommended for most people when social distancing cannot be maintained. So you might want a smaller supply of surgical/procedural masks for your nursing staff and larger supply of cloth face coverings for everyone else.

Our camp cancelled too (Maine). I was worried about staffing (LOTS of international counselors) and medically fragile campers (camp for adults and kids with special needs) so I am kind of relieved. I'm still moving out there for the Summer, though, to help with on-line camp, and hopefully hosting small groups once the "gathering" guidelines are loosened a bit in my state.

Yes!! I keep doing as much as I can to justify having a school nurse. I am working on back -to-school protocols and policies at the state level. I am updating the district on what the schools nurses have been doing since we shut down. Trying to be proactive and keeping the nurses in the loop with everything. I think schools would be crazy to let school nurses go, but it's also hard to justify the salaries they pay us when we work from home because so much of our job is face to face interaction and hands on assessments.

I was just coming here to ask this same question. Has anyone ever gone for your FNP (or any NP) while working as a school nurse? How do clinical hours happen?

We canceled camp last week. At least 75% of our campers are medically fragile and we just couldn't take the chance of a COVID exposure/outbreak at camp. We are working on some fun online stuff, and we are also hoping to open camp to small groups when that becomes an option in our state (all of our campers are local to our state). Such a strange time we are in....

We haven't decided yet either. I work with adults and kids with special needs at my camp, so we are especially concerned with some of our camper's health issues. Our campers are all local (from our state with a few exceptions) but our international staff are worried, and rightfully so. So many what ifs right now.

Geez Loiuse! I would have another person present (union rep if you have one, or maybe your supervisor) in that meeting with the principal. I am assuming your documentation is ON POINT, and I would bring that as well, to reference the multiple assessments, treatments, and conversations with the mother of the student. Good luck and keep us posted!

In this particular case, it was a group of "concerned citizens (read: other students)" who reported it to the teacher, and the teacher passed the information on to me. Teacher made it clear in her email.that she has not seen Student X.

OK, thank you for this. I, too, typically say thanks for the information, and move on with my day. But I started second-guessing myself for some reason today after that teacher emailed me.

The following situations have happened to me over the years (I work in a high school): I have had student A (along with friends student B, C and D) come in to my office and tell me they are positive student E has lice. I have had student L's parent call me telling me that student L saw lice on student M and they just thought I would like to know so I can check student M. (Yep-for real) Today I had a teacher email me about student Q, R, S, and T concerned about student X's head lice that they all saw crawling in her hair. Teacher does not have student X as a student, but thought I might like to know. What do you do when you get a 3rd party report of head lice? Do you call the "affected" student down for a check? What do you tell the student? Sometimes it feels a bit like a witch hunt to me, but I am curious what other nurses do.

Had a student come in with cough/cold symptoms last week. No fever. Student states to me that she thought it might be allergies because "It's Spring now." It's February. We live in Maine. There is not a green leaf on a tree anywhere to be seen in our state at this point, and there probably won't be until well into April. Child, you have a cold. This is not pollen-related seasonal allergies.

First of all, good job! I'm glad the other student disclosed the "real" issue and that you were able to intervene appropriately and get that student the help they need. I had a student with a significant mental health history take a bunch of ibuprofen and aspirin along with 3/4 of a bottle of Malibu Rum at school this year. I called Poison Control and eventually 911. My student was stable as well, but I had the student transported because we could not reach mom. I took some comfort in the thought that this was a huge cry for help, and that my student (who was admitted to a psych hospital after medical stabilization) was getting the help they needed, and that I was a part of that process. I was a little shaken afterwards as well. I imagine it is even harder when it is a familiar student. Debriefings are always helpful, and I am glad that is upcoming for you.

YES!!! I say this to students all the time as well. After they answer no to have you seen a doctor for this diagnosis, I always say "So, you have a headache and not a migraine then." just to help reframe their thinking.

I order the disposable ones and I label and keep them for students. I feel like they can be reused at least a few times before I have to chuck them.

One of my anti-vax family members is blaming the measles outbreak on the vaccine on FB. UGH.

Yes- if you document it the same way every time. SNAP can pull reports if you choose vomiting from it's database, but not if you free-type vomiting during your assessment. SNAP allows you create templates for frequent visits. So I choose "Vomiting" from my template list and that way they are all documented the same way.

You can upload your state's requirements to SNAP, so it will tell you if a student is compliant (most of the time) or not with immunizations once the dates are entered. However, the immunizations are not preloaded, but once I do the thing I describe below, it's not too time consuming to enter dates. To enter the immunizations, well, this is what works for me: I pick either varicella or MMR (usually varicella so we will go with that one) and click add new x 2. You have to choose varicella for each entry and then enter the dates. Then I click off of the immunization entry page (like to demographics or screenings- doesn't matter where you click) and then click on the immunization entry page again. When you do this, the varicella vaccine dates you just entered are now in a group and you can now enter the rest of the vaccinations in a group. So I click new 5 times, then choose DTaP/DTP from the drop down menu once, and just enter the dates. It's a quirky workaround, but it works for me.

My goodness!! Is he in jail yet? If not, shall we place bets on when that will happen?

I had a student put another student in a choke hold and then let go. The student in the choke hold lost consciousness and hit their head twice on the way to the floor: once of the table, once off the chair. Student was in and out of consciousness, had vomited all over himself and the floor and table. Face was so swollen from the injuries sustained while falling to the floor that I couldn't tell who he was. I called mom to check on him as he was being Lifeflighted from our local hospital to a higher level of care. He was diagnosed with a concussion and was back in school within 2 weeks.

I have not been around here much this year, so this is the fiirst I have heard of this. Congratulations on your retirement, and I hope you stick around to impart your words of wisdom and encouragement to those of us still manning the ice machines.

It's Pacer Test day at my school today, too. I had a kid come in and tell me "I just threw up 4 times! I think I might have pushed myself too hard in the Pacer Test." Ya think? I looked at him and said "If you throw up again, come see me." He said "I feel so much better now!!" and off he went. I hate Pacer Test day.

The powder inside the latex balloons goes airborne when the balloons pop and gets inhaled, which can cause an allergic reaction in people with a latex allergy. We have a no latex balloon rule at the summer camp where I work because our camp director is severely allergic to latex (and bananas, strawberries and avocados). I actually have had someone have a contact reaction to Telfa gauze that had latex in the packaging, which I didn't even think about, which was clearly labeled. I agree, you need medical documentation for this kiddo, and then you can figure out the best plan of action.