A note for Mommy

When I woke up the other afternoon after a long night at the ER I almost rolled over on to this. What a sweet note from my little boy. I was four nights into a five night stint. A little pick me up like this does a lot for a mother's heart. It also helps when said little boy is obnoxious and pitching a fit to remind me that underneath the five year old exterior is "an angel with no halo and one wing in the fire." (Gotta love country music.) He pushes the limits all the time but loves to snuggle and draw me notes at school. Drats, he gets me every time.

Parent of the Year...

I might win Parent of the Year Award*. I, an emergency room nurse, have now ignored, denied, and ultimately dismissed both of my children actually being ill. I kept telling them, oh you're not really sick. I truly told Reba to quit fake coughing. Jacob had pneumonia from allergies I ignored until he broke out in freaky hives I couldn't deny. Reba has an upper respiratory infection complete with eye and ear infections - now on antibiotics because I finally gave in and took her to see Dr. Joe. See, I win.

Currently Reba is upstairs hacking up a lung and Jacob is coming down off the albuterol buzz from his night time breathing treatment. -

-I just sealed the deal for the title - Reba just coughed so hard she threw up. I stripped her sheets and put her back to bed. Her hair smells like vomit and our humidifier doesn't work. (I did make her brush her teeth - I hate that taste.) I didn't even put jammies back on her.

Ultimately I did seek treatment for both children, but clearly they were not O.K. My only consolation is that a friend who is a practicing Hematologist/Oncologist let her 11 month old get a double ear infection so badly that pus was coming out of her eyes. Baby's O.K., no harm done, but it must be a professional hazard - ignore your own child's illness until they literally have pus coming out of their eyes. I overheard on my way out of the office, Dr. Joe on the phone with the Parent of the Year* Nominations Board, "No that's Sarah with and "H" - great I'm doomed.

I also told Brian he wasn't sick. He's seeing the doctor tomorrow morning.

Scary smart wants to be a doctor...

A set of scrubs I just whipped up. Not as polished looking as the vest for Jacob, but cute...

...for Halloween. We feel it is only appropriate that our scary smart 3 year old wants to be a doctor for Halloween. She's been telling us that she either wants to be a teacher or a doctor when she grows up. We figure either she'll be broke when she grows up or we will. Whichever it may be one thing we are certain of, this kid is scary smart. But don't take my word for it.

Reba is her teachers' absolute favorite. They aren't allowed to have favorites so they spell f-a-v-o-r-i-t-e. A lot of good that does, this kid is learning to spell! Jacob, as any other normal Kindergartner, is learning his phonetics and how to spell (don't get me wrong, my son is brilliant as well). Reba is taking his flash cards when he's not using them and spelling the words with the magnets on the fridge. Seriously.

She also talks non stop, a trait I'm afraid she inherited from me. Besides the "r"s being a little mispronounced (she sounds like she's from Boston) you would think you are talking to an elementary aged child. She also sings - but not just normal kid songs, she makes up words to tunes she knows. Usually she's pretty good, too.

Her Sunday School teacher, Mr. Willy, raves about her. He says she's getting abstract ideas like unconditional love and where Jesus is. I guess her theology is good, but what kills me is when we are sitting in church and the Pastor is doing the prayers for the people - Reba is responding with "Lord, hear our prayer." It melts a Mom's heart...

We are really in for it. She is just smart enough to get in some really fantastic trouble. For now, I will humor her with some doctor scrubs for her Halloween costume, but who knows what's next?

The Growing Pains Remedy

This is obviously my cousin and not me with my kids - see how smiley they all are?

It never fails. You are dog tired from a long day of t-ball and your oldest child wakes you by wailing about his leg hurting while simultaneously climbing into your bed. Great... You wake, throw off your covers (hopefully forcefully enough so your snoozing spouse is aware of how huge an inconvenience this is for you), and you stumble out of bed. The growing pains remedy...

First, you search for the Tylenol in the dark because turning on lights would wake you up too much and probably wake up the younger child, too. Tylenol found you struggle to remember in your sleepy fog, "is this the kid who gets 2 teaspoons or 1" -it's an important differentiation. Then you give him a glass of water because - I don't know, it just helps...

Back upstairs you are padding around the foot of your other child's bed for the heat pack you made just for these crisis. This heat pack is a little pocket of fabric that you filled with dry white rice. A few seconds in the microwave and you are on your way to a sleeping child. First you must convince said child that heat packs really do work (just like they have the last 9 times you made him feel better). Heat pack finally on, your child finally silent, you quietly creep back downstairs to slip quietly back into bed (but not so quietly, you still want your spouse to know that you have just taken care of things and he owes you a great debt of gratitude). Sleep is yours at last.

Then you wake up to discover your other child has pink-eye!

On My Soap Box

Kids' health... in my opinion there is no other more serious domestic issue. I think the face of our country and the next generation will be most impacted by the health of American children. I will admit that I don't follow politics, I rarely watch the news if ever, and I hardly ever weigh in on something that I don't know much about. But I spent one year as a school nurse in a fairly economically sound area of Los Angeles County (as LA goes - that's not saying much) and I am currently an ER nurse in a suburb of Austin, TX, and somehow I feel that qualifies me to speak on the issue of children's health.

I can't tell you how many kids I see any given night (I work nights - so that's what I can speak on) who are uninsured or if they are insured typically by a government run program. Many children are arriving right now with upper respiratory illness, stomach aches, rashes, earaches and other generally simple medical problems. My frustration is that usually these are not reasons to take your child to the emergency room. Most of these kids, if they were properly seeing a pediatrician, would not be so sick if they had earlier care. Frequently we see the same children on a regular basis because their family uses the ER as their primary care doctor and we are in the suburbs.

As a school nurse, I generally knew when kids were ill whether they had been sent to my office because the teacher had noticed they were under the weather or the parents called our office to let us know their child wouldn't be in (our health offices in this district also frequently handled attendance). Many times we required a note from a doctor to come back to school especially after an extended illness. We also managed our chronic illnesses or issues which requred medication such as asthma, diabetes, ADD/ADHD, and seizure disorders. Many times we had kids in my office with an asthma attack and no inhaler, diabetics with no education or follow up plans - seeing the local free clinic, or children who seemed to always be sick but NEVER saw a doctor (usually for lack of parent education, insurance or resources). It became more and more frustrating.

My proposed solution to medical care for children in the United States is to offer a school based clinic run by Nurse Practitioners and over seen by an off site MD. The children are already at school. When they are sick they already come through the health office. When immunizations are due the nurse is already doing more work chasing the parents down than it would be to just immunize the child. If they have a chronic illness such as diabetes we already see them in the health office to check sugars and give insulin (often more than once a day). We are already looking in throats and ears and what we usually tell parents is, "take your kids to the doctor." This is all well and good for the insured child or the kids with parents who actually have a clue, but the reality is there are plenty who don't. It wouldn't solve major catastrophic issues like major broken bones or other accidents, but it could make a huge impact in getting a grip on health care for kids.

I haven't written any formal proposals and haven't conjured up all the details but I think this is a great idea. I also can't take complete credit for this idea - it is a dream of my former boss to have a school based clinic in her school district. She is currently working on her advanced practise nursing degree to do just that. In this country it is a law that every child be offered an education. Great! Terrific! We already have that set up (better in some places than others). Why not use a system that is already in place, already sees our children on a daily basis, and is most apt to know already when kids are sick and healthy? Don't spend money on developing a new system full of administration fees and other such nonsense when you could be hiring a Nurse Practitioner for every school district (at a minimum).

I think the best way to start is small and local to prove that this plan could work. I don't live in CA anymore but LA county seems like a great place to start. Wonder if the governator would extend a grant for a pilot program? I don't even know who my TX governor is - maybe I should start with my school district...

The school nurse motto is, "Healthy kids learn better." Duh... Let's change America for the better - how about producing a whole generation of smarter kids.