When Kids Say the Darndest Things?!

This semester I'm enrolled in practicum courses for both community health and family health (pediatrics and obstetrics). I knew family health would be fun and engaging- lots to learn about treating babes and children- and I had wondered before beginning nursing school if I would want to do something in pediatrics. What I didn't know was that in my community health clinicals I would be assigned to working with the school nurse in Pullman and with Headstart here in Moscow- a double dose of the little rascals this semester.

I had predicted this semester to be a good time- and my first rotations with the school nurse Michelle didn't let me down. Our first item of business: check all the students in Mrs. X's 1st grade class for head lice. Oh, boy. My instant reaction was a humble preparation for presenting and investigating into a delicate subject for the little tykes.

Sidebar Confession: I had head-lice when I was little, and it was the most shamed I've ever felt in my life. My mom had a heart attack, we had to comb through my hair (lots, lots of long hair) for about 57 hours, my poor little sister caught them since we shared a bed, and we basically should have just bull-dozed our house instead of trying to decontaminate. But if all THAT wasn't bad enough, we had to call to every house I had been in for the previous month and inform them that they now needed to boil their sheets and pray to God this microscopic scalp plague had not descended upon them. Grandparents. Cousins. Friends, soon to be X-friends. And of course the doctor explained, "They prefer clean hair- there's nothing wrong with you," but not even a licensed professional could shovel the humiliation from the depths of my soul. I would have much preferred a scarlet "A" on my dress, thanks very much Mr. Hawthorne.

Now you have an understanding of the soberness I carried, along with my clinical clipboard, into this classroom. Michelle spoke to the 46 eyes blinking at her. "I'm here to check for head lice because the state requires it. These are tiny bugs that can live on your scalp. They don't harm you, but they will make you itch very badly. You can't see them on anyone else's head, and you can't tell if someone else has them just because they itch. You don't know where they come from, so you can't tell if it's from him or her- they just come out of no where. If we find them, we'll send a note home to tell your parents how to get them out." I was impressed with such a calm explanation of the little mites, and I thought she did a very gracious job protecting some dignity for any victim, should we find lice.

About 8-10 little hands shot up. Glorious.
First little boy: "I have microscopic bugs that suck the blood out of my scalp. They are MICRO-scop-IC."
Michelle: "Thanks for sharing."
2nd: "I have dandruff so don't think it's the lice."
M: "Good point. Dandruff is not lice."
3rd: "I had lice last week."
all together now: "I've had lice" "Me too" "My head itches too."

Turns out they were all lice-free and I wished I had been in this 1st-grade class because I would have evidently been the cool kid.

That afternoon I was filing immunization records for Michelle in her office, which is right across the door from the principal's office. Fortune smiles upon me. About 2:30pm a teacher goes into the office with a small boy, maybe 2nd grade. I hear her tell the principal, "Danny has had an incident on the playground, and he thinks he has a very good explanation for you. Danny, go ahead and tell him what happened." The boy spoke very softly, but I could decipher something about "blue" and "paint" and "fingers" and something about "it was my color first." There was a dramatic pause from the principal and he finally said,

"Danny, everything you did was just fine.... up until you bit her finger."

School nurses have great jobs. God bless teachers.