Its been a long and stressful week. Work has been crazy. With everyone worried about the flu, I'm seeing 55 kids a day. We have to track anyone with Influenza like illness we call it ILI. Everyday we have to fill out papers about how many kids are being sent home with IlI, how many are out sick with IlI and teachers too. Anyone who comes to my office that has a fever and a cough or sore throat then has to wear a mask and be isolated. Ive seen lots of kids with sore throats this week. Only a few have had IlI and had to go home. But guess what, now I woke up this morning feeling bad and have a sore throat. Great, I was so looking forward to this long weekend.
In the mist off all that, I'm trying to teach some staff members how to give emergency medication in case there is no nurse at school. They have to be able to give an epi-pen for an allergic reaction, glucagon which is a shot they have to mix up and give to a diabetic who may be unresponsive from low blood sugar. And I wanted them to be able to test a blood sugar. I wanted to meet with them after school, but 2 of the 4 said they could never stay after school. Great. So Ive been trying to get it done during there planning time, except I don't have planning time and have to still see kids. So while doing this, Stephanie calls me at work crying that her eyes are swollen and her ear hurts. I get a doctors appt. for her but now need to get someone to cover the health room. We use to have a floater nurse but they cut the position. So a regular staff member covered the health room but cant help give insulin to diabetics. I have a new diabetic that cant seem to get the hang of figuring out her carbs and calculating her insulin dose. So I have to get another nurse from another school to agree to come and help her do that. O'course I felt bad about that. But it had to be done. But I'm also feeling pressure to try and get back to school as soon as possible so that maybe she wont have to come. I got Stephanie to the doctor. They thought it was just allergies. Weird , she has never had allergies before. And I did get back in time to help the diabetic , so the other nurse didn't have to come.
I'm also having to plan out how to give swine flu shots to all the kids and staff at school when the shots become available. By Oct 3rd, I have to send a report to DEHC on all the immunizations at school. It requires me to look through 1000 records and figure out who has religious exemption and who has medical exemptions on their immunizations. Also I need to make sure everyone is up to date. Where do they keep these records? In another building that is really far from my office. Then I also need to plan the "walk to school" event. That's Oct 8th. And last but not least, I'm doing the agility trial stuff. Our trial is Sept. 25-27th. What the heck was I thinking!!! I don't know if you belong to the Agile List but all the complaining that has been going on about walk thurs at trials and if clubs take you money , they should guarantee your walk thru no matter how many dogs you run. That's all causing me stress and worry too.
Tuesday I had a nursing meeting after school. I didn't finish that until 6pm. Wednesday ,my son wanted me to come have dinner with him. I did that and left right after work. So I got home at 8pm. Then Thursday I was suppose to go to the agility clubs meeting, but I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do one more thing. So I took the dogs for a really long walk. I think we walked 5 miles that night. It felt great.
To top it all off, my husband has been in Costa Rica all week. He comes home today.
What was I going to do today? I was going to try and replace the front stereo speakers in the old van. They are blown and you cant listen to the radio. The Toyota dealer wanted 600.00 to replace the speakers. Yea, right. Then Best Buy wanted 800.00. They said they would have to replace the whole system. Again, yea right. So I googled it and found multiple people who replaced there speakers in that van. But I couldn't figure out how to get the door panel off. I googled that too. Someone of course had done it, and posted pictures. What the heck did we do before the Internet. So maybe if I feel better, my son and I can tackle this project.
I hope to get some practice in too. Not much has been getting done. I really want to continue lessons with Meagan but she trialing every weekend and only having lessons during the week. Its been a major bummer. I just don't think I can drive that hour and 45 min. after work to take lessons. That would be at least 3 hours of driving after work, I'm just not sure I'm up for that. I really want to take lessons, we do so much better when taking lessons.
Well that was basically my life for this week. Hopefully I will get back to dog stuff and can post about that this weekend. O yea I forgot. I still have that rash. I think is chigger bites. Its still driving me crazy. It looks like it takes about 2 weeks to get over chigger bites. I just finished week one.
A Walktober summary
16 hours ago
5 comments:
This swine flu stuff has made everyone go crazy. When I went to school last week, I noticed hand sanitizer machines installed EVERYWHERE! I thought, oh boy, I bet that's all we're going to hear about on the first day.
Schools make staff cuts, and then except more from the staff they still have. It brings morale down, which ultimately makes for less productive workers. It just doesn't make good business sense. Schools really need to be run like businesses, but for some reason they are on a different planet.
I hope your stress level eases up. As well as your rash, and sore throat!
As for your trial, you'll never be able to please everyone. Just try and please the majority. Don't worry about the whiners. Nobody likes them anyway.
I am an RN and enjoyed reading about your day at work. I feel for you especially with the coming flu season.
Google is the coolest thing in the world isn't it?
Sorry about the rash, hope you can make it through the next week. Chiggers are horrible.
-Carolynn
I never thought about how stressful it would be to be a school nurse, especially during flu season. I hope you do not get too sick and get over it fast. WOW, what cant you learn from the internet and good for you replacing your speakers!
Hope you are feeling better by now - sorry about all the stress you are under. Maybe if you take one day at a time? (I know mom is no good at that!)
Diana,
Sounds like you are just having a fun time all around - not. Hope you feel better!
Diane
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