BeckyESRN

"I know the new table is beautiful, but you CANNOT lick it" said as a group of students was standing around a newly delivered carved wood table for out lobby. They has their grimey little hands all over it, rubbing it, then one 4th grader said "It's so beautiful, I can't stop touching it. I want to lick it!" and all of the other students chimed in "me too, me too". So gross

It finally happened! A kiddo walked in a plopped his bloody tooth right on my desk? C'Mon Now!

This is what I use and have been using for a few years. It covers the basics and they can write in the rest Nurse Pass.docx

Same! My letter board at home says "May: not Winter, not Summer, all pollen!"

You can check your county health department for posters too! Some will send them for shipping only, some you can print out on your own. The Allegheny County Health Dept. has some good ones.

I got a card from social committee on Administrative Assistants' Day because "We won't remember you if we don't give it to you today"? Thanks...I guess I grabbed cards at Dollar Tree to send to my fellow nurses. We always remember one another

Has anyone else noticed the hashtags that were added to this topic? # school kids is fine, but # bad kids is not okay. I don't think any of us would ever refer to our kids as "bad". Bad behavior, sure; bad choice, absolutely: bad kids, nope AllNurse's Admin could maybe take that down

We had a parent send her close contact kid to school the next day. She insisted he wasn't a close contact because it wasn't a school activity, so "it's illegal" for us to exclude him. She was also mad that we knew he was a close contact because she wasn't going to tell the school. ?

63 nonsense visits, 4 legit visits, a dozen meds, 1 hour and 40 minutes of contact tracing and phone calls, and one 9pm email from a teacher who "forgot" to include the students sitting by my positive case. Is it Summer yet?! Today's winner is the parent that insisted the doctor told her that her close contact quarantined kiddo could return to school today as long as he doesn't have a fever...exposure was Sunday?‍♀️ When I asked her to send me the doctor's note, she refused, because we all know that no actual doctor would say that. C'Mon Now!

4th grade boy comes in pretty frantic: Look at my arm! It's bright pink. It's hot. It's super, super itchy! Me: Lemme see...? 4th: ? it's not funny. It really itches! I could be having an allergic reaction Me: ooorrr...it could be pink highlighter? 4th: ? oh Life saving nursing over here

I got my 1st Moderna on Jan 15th. On Jan 21st, one lymph node near my clavicle and one under my arm, started swelling. They hurt a ton and are the size of a clementine and half a fast pitch softball. I have a follow up with my PCP today because the swelling and tenderness haven't decreased. That being said, I'll happily roll up my sleeve for my 2nd dose! maybe on the opposite side though...

The wording that we are going with when parents ask about out of state travel or when we hear about out of state travel is "The health department strongly recommends a self-quarantine period of 14 days following out of state travel. While this is not required by the school district, we fully support the health department's recommendation and will excuse all absences related to self-quarantine and provide a fully online learning experience." I wish we could require it, but, because our health department doesn't require it, we can't either. Most of our parents have been great about being extra cautious this year, thankfully!

Our teachers are overscheduled too. It seems like every minute is filled with meetings, zoom calls, webinars... It's too much. We are in person 4 days a week with a virtual day on Wednesday. There's a lot of emotional labor this year.

If I had a dollar for every kid that "just doesn't seem like himself today", I could retire tomorrow. I got called to the sensory room to check on a kid...the reason...he took off his shoes. No symptoms, no complaints, just took off his shoes?‍♀️

Smelly mask syndrome is my new favorite. It's a disorder of denial, often found in elementary aged children who insist that their mask smells awful, the new mask also smells awful, the 3rd mask smells bad too...this smell is cannot possibly be related to the fact that they did not brush their teeth this morning. A mint is the only known cure

Our elementary schools are back in person 4 days a week and we've had 1 positive in nearly 900 students. Our county numbers have been low since August and have continued to stay at that "green" level. Our classes have between 16 and 22 students; about 4ish + ft between desks, masks at all times except when walking outside around the track for mask breaks, classes are staying put and teachers are switching as needed for different subjects, no materials are being shared

"Doing precision guess work based on unreliable data provided by those with questionable knowledge." is even more applicable this year!

50ish visits today...guess we're back to business as usual, sigh

My son has ADHD and seasonal allergies. Claritin wasn't covering his allergies in the Spring, so we switched to Zyrtec and OMG it completely eliminated the effect of his ADHD medication. He was so hyper and restless, it was terrible. I have 1 student with a Claritin order for allergic reaction (with epi, not on its own) because he also has a seizure disorder and benadryl lowers the seizure threshold.

My husband works the COVID+ and COVID pending floor at his hospital and has since March. Their ratios are unchanged from cardio/pulmonary, so 7a-3p 5 pts, 3p-11p 6 pts, 11p-7a 7 pts. Acuity is never a consideration. PCAs have up to 21 patients depending on the census. Some nights the floor has no CNA and the nurses can have up to 5 with no PCA. There have also been nights where there is only 1 nurse and no PCA on that side of the unit (closed double doors in between), which seems really unsafe. N95s can be requested, but the nurses agree that management tries to discourage the use of N95s. On the COVID+ side, nurses were told to re-use their gown for as much of the shift as possible, they are given 2 for 12 hours, but can request more and receive a lecture for doing so. They've switched types of N95s a few times since March and no has been fit tested for the new ones although the emails about the new masks have said that new fit testing was required. I think the worst thing that the hospital is doing is pulling COVID unit staff to other areas of the hospital AFTER working 4 hours on the COVID+ unit without providing clean scrubs. So, 4 hours of exposure (even with PPE and especially with the gown situation) and then they move the nurse to oncology or observation or ER holds...

One of my med kiddos is now in 2nd grade, everyday in 1st grade, he'd take his med and I'd tell him "You rock, dude!" or "You're a rockstar" Yesterday, he came in for his med and said "I'm so good at taking my medicine! Do you know why? Because I'm a rockstar!" I missed these kids so much

Kid sat in water, needed new pants. Gave him pants and underwear. He came out of my bathroom, tossed the clean underwear to me and said "You know I don't wear these" yep, still a pretty normal school year despite all the changes `

I love the birthday package idea! Emailing food services now...

Ohio just closed all school for 3 weeks, starting Monday.

We start Spring Break after Friday. Our teachers are trying to pry info from admin, but with the situation changing so quickly, no one has any idea what will happen when we return on the 23rd.