Weirdest ailment you have seen in the schools?

Keepstanding, ASN, RN · Jan 13, 2009

a bean that was sprouting out of a child's ear. they had put a bean in their ear and low and behold....it sprouted. strangest thing i have seen in a long time !

praiser :heartbeat

Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN · Jan 13, 2009

LOL that is great!

Ironically mine is an ear too. Kid's ear kept draining, I mean copius amounts of clear fluid. Went through several rounds of abx, saw a couple different specialists, to no avail.

When I say this was alot of drainage, I mean that for state testing purposes we had to give the child a plastic cup to hold to the ear and put a trash can by the desk for her to dump it in when it got full, and it was filled several times within a couple hours. It was so bad that it would squirt out and onto the floor and I'd have to get the custodian with a mop - I witnessed this in my office several times.

All the while the MDs are saying it is not infectious, keep the kid in school. You can see how this would be a problem when it is draining all day.

After several months of dealing with this, a diagnosis was finally made. The child had somehow developed a fistula between the ear and the parotid salivary gland, and it was saliva shooting out the ear! :uhoh3: The child's mother believed that the child had developed some control over it, and was using it to get out of class! I would not put it past that student, but the MD could not confirm if that was possible. It ended up closing by itself and no surgical intervention was needed. Very weird and frustrating case!

Any others?

SchoolNurseBSN · Jan 13, 2009

This is more of a mental than a physical ailment, but it just happened this morning. Students have finals this week. The ones with 504 accomadations were being tested in the library. A student was trying to eat everyone's pencils and paper.

When questioned why he said "I was hungry." Good answer!

Aneroo, LPN · Jan 14, 2009

Frequent flier came in and said "I had a nosebleed last week and blood came out of my nose. What does that mean?"

I can understand the concern, but stop using class time to come ask me stuff about things that happened in the past!!! "My stomach hurts"- how long? 2 years. Stuff like that, the same girl.

Now thinks she pregnant, and I fear for our future. LOL

guest83140 · Jan 15, 2009

A student in 8th Grade walks in and says, I'm starting to have a seizure. With left hand switching, proceeds to walk back to the cot lays down and kicks off each shoe and goes into his number. Psuedo most of the time I must add. I distracted him this time asking him questions about his dog and he stopped and sat up. But mom came running most of the time adding to the drama. Once when I needed to administer the Diastat in the hallway, the boy would seizure bounce away from us while the on floor, shaking the whole time. Of course I had a screen around us and almost laughed out but I was too upset for the trouble he was causing at the moment. But I thought, he's faking it but didn't want that much attention. Usually I saw him when his teachers:chuckle made him mad. :nono:

luvschoolnursing, LPN · Jan 16, 2009

Frequent flier came in and said "I had a nosebleed last week and blood came out of my nose. What does that mean?"
I can understand the concern, but stop using class time to come ask me stuff about things that happened in the past!!! "My stomach hurts"- how long? 2 years. Stuff like that, the same girl.
Now thinks she pregnant, and I fear for our future. LOL

I have a couple of girls who are "pregnant" every month. Not sure if they want to be or just want the attention. I usually try and give them some extra attention while not directly addressing the pregnancy issue. These girls are ones who say "I am having my period now, but I read on the internet you can get your period and still be pregnant. And I did take a pregnancy test and it was negative but I read on the internet..." It's kind of sad really.

scooby72 · Jan 17, 2009

I've had a few wild ones over the years....

Hysterical third grade girl, "Mrs. __!!!! I swallowed a pig!!" Turns out she was chewing on her necklace at lunch and the charm on it - yes a it had a pink, plastic pig, and now it was missing. "Do you think you swallowed it?" I ask. Had her stand up so I could peer in her throat with a flashlight - hoping I wouldn't find a pig in her airway. Plop - it falls out of the bottom of her shirt. Whew!

TEACHER comes in. "I have something in my ear and it is driving me nuts!" Get out the flashlight (couldn't live without that tool) to peek - didn't want to use the otoscope for fear of pushing anything deeper into the ear. I see what looks like a hair spanning the ear canal - very shallow. Tell her to hold still and snag it with the tweezers. It is a very stiff - white hair - not attached to the skin - just lying across the canal. "Oh - that looks like it came from my beagle!"

Or the teacher that I accompanied to the ER who was c/o chest pain. She checked out fine Thank Goodness - but the ER doc had a snicker when he brought out the chest X-ray out for us to see. It showed a perfect visual of the house key she had tucked in her bra.

Then there was the time when I had a student sent to me because she had a live kitten in her backpack....had no idea how it got there...seems we get sent all of the things noone has any idea what to do with!