So this past Friday early afternoon, I had a student come by with a swollen finger. Denied any injury/insect bite. Afebrile. Said it was a combo of itching/hurting and it started that morning. I decided to outline the inflammation and when I finished that up, I notice very faint streaking, which extended all the way to their shoulder (couldn't tell if it was in the axilla due to restrictive clothing and how faint it was). Called their parent to pick the kid up. I strongly advised them to take the student to the doctor in the next couple hours.
Fast forward to today, parent came by and said the kid had to receive IV antibiotics at the hospital for a day and then was released on oral.
Anyway, I'm at a new district and don't have a work buddy yet that I can share my small victories with, so you guys get to be that for me today. So glad this kid wasn't worse off with sepsis or something. Plus, it's nice to have this little nursing win to be reminded that I have a positive impact on these kids and can actually improve the course of a person's illness/outcome.
I think this deserves a "Bam! Another kid snatched from the jaws of death! School Nurses...that's what we do!" Awesome assessment Nurse! You saved that kid and family a lot of grief!
My second day on the job I had a little girl who did not seem sick at all (other than a cough) come in because her cough was disruptive. Low and behold, a fever of 102.6 and dim/crackles in her LLL. Called mom to pick her up and bring her straight to the PCP... sure enough, PNA!! After years of having "permanent impostor syndrome" as a nurse, this was the first time I really felt I caught something on my own.
I'm not a nurse, but I will be taking my prereqs in January. I just thought I'd share my story on how school nurses can really be impactful.
I was in second grade and we were doing routine eye exams in the nurse's office. My school nurse, at the time, was doing mine and she noticed how I couldn't really see the letters in that one thing you look into (It looks like a microscope, kind of, but you just read the letters. I don't know what it's called. Lol) in my right eye. She recommended to my mom that I needed to see an eye doctor. If I remember correctly, she was really persistent about it, but in a good way.
Well I went to the eye doc and I ended up being diagnosed with Coats disease. We caught it just in time, and I had cryotherapy done. (I think that it's called - where they freeze the blood vessels to stop them leaking into the retina.) I ended up just having peripheral vision in that eye until I was like 27. Complications with my disease then led to total vision loss and the optic nerve being completely damaged.
Still though, I had vision in that eye when I was a child, and I'm thankful for that. It was all because of that nurse too. So school nurses rock, continue being awesome!
.thumb.jpg.b55ddcfa3396d38bb9c1d7e2d94ab854.jpg){kind=small}
lifelearningrn, BSN, RN
2,622 Posts
Great catch!!