YOUR Childhood School Nurse memories

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I was a total frequent flyer, especially in 4th and 5th grade. My parents had recently divorced, I was in a new school and my mom was never around so I needed TLC. We didn't actually have a real school nurse, it was the secretary and she would take a temp and give you tylenol or call home. There was no triage system or anything. My mom could never actually come pick me up so I would just sort of hang out in the office. I think now I am SUPER strict b/c I assume they are all malingering. My own DS who is in 6th grade goes to his nurse a lot and she and I commiserate via email all the time, LOL.

I do remember once in High School though, I was getting my aura before a migraine and I knew I had a narrow window to get home. The secretary tried to send me home, but My mom insisted they put me in a cab and send me to her office. I think she thought I was faking (I wonder why, LOL). I always vomit with migraines and sure enough, just as the cab pulls in front of her office building, I hurled ALL OVER the cab. God bless that lovely cab driver who was super nice about it and felt terrible for me.

Specializes in Home Health,Dialysis, MDS, School Nurse.
Anyone else remember the sugar cube vaccines?

everytime I see a sugar cube, I get that taste in my mouth!

Specializes in School Nursing, Pediatrics.

I never went to the school nurse. I can't even remember who they were at any school!

Elementay school - early-mid 90s, I loved the nurse's office. She always had the radio on softly and was momish, and just made me feel better. I loved laying there and listening to her bustle around. I didn't go often though, I wasn't a frequent flier, but I went occasionally

MS - I have no memory of going, although I might have

HS - I never went, except for a sports physical and to get my work permit

I am the school nurse at my old high school now! lol

There were never school nurses in my school district until the last couple of years. I once feigned being sick in the seventh grade to get out of taking a math test I forgot all about. The teacher sent me to the office and the secretary put me in a room with a cot. If I was smart about it, I should have told them I threw up. As it was, they let me stay for about twenty minutes before sending me back to class.

Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

In high school, someone left a test tube full of sulfuric acid in a sink. It looks like water, and the sink was dripping, so I picked it up and shook it out all over my leg. Instant extreme burning, melted my hose (mandatory dresses for girls back then). My chemistry teacher made ME run to the nurse's office for treatment. It ended up burning me all the way to and into my tibia. I have an interesting scar and a nifty little hole in the bone on xray. It like to never healed.

She bandaged me up and sent me back to class. NBD

Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.

I wasn't a frequent flier, I only went when I had to, because I knew that my parents were too busy to come get me.

I do remember my middle school nurse, which was the only time I went to see her because I had bad allergic reaction to the chili at our school and that's something I LOVED to eat (And still do), and each time I would eat it, I would go to class and maybe 15 minutes in, I would have a horrible headache and go to the restroom and vomit, afterwards have horrible migraines. My awesome Texas History teacher, she would advocate for me to the nurse, but the nurse didn't care and would keep telling me to go to class, even though I still felt horrible and I would get home and sleep through the migraine.

Then I realized on the allergy and didn't eat chili for years out of fear until I was in college, when I did and I didn't get sick. My guess it was something in the school's chili that caused it.

Specializes in Public Health, TB.

No nurse, but I do remember lining up for vaccines, including the sugar cube! I only attended 2 schools 1-8, and 9-12, and both had very nice secretaries. There was a cot just off the school office, to wait while a parent could pick you up. I think I went home maybe 3 times in 12 years: vomiting, a badly scraped knee that wouldn't stop bleeding, and a nosebleed that wouldn't quit.

A nurse from the health department came in 9th grade to teach about VD and contraception.

I only went into the office 3x my whole school career, and that was senior high when I was dx with mono. I had a doc's note stating whenever I was tired I was free to go in and rest. it was boring and I would just return to class. LOL!

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

I have no memory of my school nurse, but my physical education teacher saved my hand and quite possibly my life.

I lived on a farm in Wisconsin, and a tornado took out the chicken coop. When fall came and it started getting colder at night, the decision was made to move all of the chickens to an area of the barn where they'd be warmer. Since the chickens were scattered all over the farm, my folks made a game of waiting until they roosted at night, then sneaking up, grabbing them by the legs and moving them to the barn. It was rather like a treasure hunt. One evening in late September or early October, I spotted one of last remaining free hens flapping her way into the wood shed. I followed and waited while she flew up into the rafters just above my head as I stood on the wood pile and settled down to sleep. Then I stealthily made my way up to where she was roosting. Because of the configuration of the wood pile, the only angle from which I could reach her was directly below. There were two separate rafters a few inches apart, and I had to reach between them to grab her legs. Not a well-conceived plan.

I stood on the wood pile, reached up between the rafters (an adult hand wouldn't have fit) and grabbed the hen. She woke up outraged at the ill-treatment and started squawking and flapping her wings, struggling to escape. In the process, one of her claws went right through my right index finger and out the other side.

So there I was, hanging onto this struggling, squawking hen with my finger impaled. I couldn't let go and I couldn't drag her between the rafters to get down. The wood pile underneath me was shifting and sliding and it hurt like the dickens! Not knowing what else to do, I started screaming for help. My family was indoors, eating supper. It wasn't until bedtime that they came out looking for me, and by that time I was scared to death, in agony and battered and bruised around the legs by the shifting woodpile. I was sent to bed without any supper.

The next day, my finger was red, swollen and painful. I wanted to stay home from school -- the fact that my parents wouldn't let me probably saved my life. By third period gym class, the finger was dark purple, swollen to about the size of a bratwurst and my whole hand was red and hot. I was lethargic, feverish and apparently not mentating particularly well. My biggest concern was that I couldn't participate in the rope climbing that day, and would probably flunk gym class. I tried rather unsuccessfully to climb one-handed, and the gym teacher, Miss H. came over to see what was going on. I'll never forget the look of horror on her face when she caught sight of my hand.

Miss H. called my father, who said he knew all about the injury I got from "being stupid" and that it was no big deal. He was at work and couldn't leave to come and get me, so just let me walk to his work. Instead, Miss H. put me into her own car and drove me to the clinic. The family doctor said it was one of the worst injuries he'd ever seen, and he got his colleague, the surgeon to look at it. Before I knew it, I was getting my finger cut open, and I was certain they were going to cut it off. I had overheard the family doctor and the surgeon debating amputating my hand vs. amputating my finger. Fortunately, neither was needed. With I & D and antibiotics, I recovered, although I still have the scars. My father was LIVID that I had "wasted all that money" by going to the doctor. Miss H. told him it was her decision, she'd pay the bill. The family doctor, the surgeon and Miss H. all attended our church. I know there must have been plenty of discussion, but my father never got a bill for my treatment. Miss H. told me when I saw her at my mother's funeral a few years ago that there was no bill, the doctor told the clinic not to bill my parents. She was concerned that my parents would take it out on me if it cost them money, so she talked to the doctors and they agreed not to bill my parents. She said she would have paid the bill or arranged somehow for the school to pay for it, but it wasn't necessary due to the kindness of those doctors. The only think my parents had to pay for was the antibiotics.

I have been grateful to my gym teacher for the last fifty years for saving my hand and quite possibly my life.

Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

Nurses, including school nurse, were a few people who succeded in scaring my parents literally to the level of wetting their pants. It tells something, especially in the USSR where most people were way more assertive and prone to bypassing laws than the developed world's majority.

I well remember my school nurse who, after seeing me going into anaphylaxis because yet another practical joke played by some of other kids, picked me up one day after I finally came back from hospital and told me to go and eat my lunch only in her little closet, doesn't matter what. I asked her what happened if my teacher won't let me (we were not supposed to wander around school), and this very short, very stout lady with wild orange hairs told most assuringly:

- then I get that needle and shoot your teacher! (there were no Epipens, and I was getting epinephrine IV by 12G needle in case of anaphylaxys)

Since that, I had my food in safety and peace. She always brought me buns and other sweet stuff in ungodly abundance and toward the end of 6th grade I mastered making cotton balls, watching sterilisator going, writing vaccines journal and some other old-fashioned basic nursing stuff :)

Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

I went to Catholic schools. We only had nurses for vision, hearing, and scoliosis screenings.

Once I got to Junior High, we had a school nurse one day a week. She was from the public schools. She scared the teachers. I saw her once for a screening, and once for a TB test.

The math/computers teacher kept a box of period supplies in a corner of her classroom. Anyone who needed them could walk in between classes or after school and find what they needed.

Specializes in ICU.

We didn't even have school nurses! Some of the large cities did, I suppose, but not my city school system.

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