There Will Be Blood

.... and no, I'm not talking about the award-winning movie.

I'm talking about what is going to happen if teacher-whom-shallemain-nameless sends her student down to my health office one more time insisting he has pink eye.

Uh, last time I checked, *I* was the one with medical training. There is not pain, discomfort, or irritation. There is ZERO discharge (the number one factor in conjunctivitis/pink eye). Yes, his eyes are bloodshot. But he spent the first part of his morning crying, so what do you expect!?!?!

Gesh!! :cursing::cursing::cursing::cursing::cursing:

eta, I just saw him for the THIRD time (and its only 12:30) and I'm starting to lose my patience!!

*eye roll* LOVE stupid people!

Sound like she just wants him out of her class!

Sound like you need to put together an INFORMATIONAL pamphlet to EDUCATE that teacher! ...or maybe she thinks he didn't come down to your office...make up a "go back to class, do not stop at nurse's office" card. lol

OMGosh I swear she must be related to the nurse at my sons school. Now just so you know the school "nurse" here is not a real nurse. She has no real medical training. They do have a nurse who comes in but she is not there everyday. So this lady calls me one morning like two years ago when my son had just gotten to school to tell me he had pinkeye. I was like ummm no I dont think so. See I have to be at the busstop with my son every single day because he rides the handicapped bus. It is the law. So I see him every single morning and know what he looks like. I also know that if there was a single thing wrong with my son he would tell me. He complains ALOT!! So anyhow back to the story....she is insisting my son has pink eye and needs to be picked up. I asked to speak to him and he told me his eye is red but he had a bug fly in his eye and he rubbed it. He said he told the "nurse" this too but she would not listen to him. So she gets back on the phone and tells me I have to come pick him up. I do not have a car so I had to call my husband and have him drive all the way to the school bring him home and go back to work. My husband even said it looked like he had rubbed his eye. So she told my husband that before he could be allowed back in school we had to take him to the doctor. Even if the redness went away. I called her back up later that day and told her look if I thought it was pink eye I would defenitely take him to the doctor but it is gone after giving him a cool compress and having him lay down for a little while. She said "I dont care he still needs to go to the doctor AND have a letter stating he ok to come back to school" So I told her even if it was pink eye you do realize it is not always a contagious form right? She said "no pink eye is always contagious!!" So I printed out the info on conjuntivitus and sent it in with my sons excuse. Needless to say she does not like me at all. Ohhh the next year when my son broke both him arms at school the school nurse called me and told me he was faking!! I have to admit when he got home from school and he kept having the pain jump from one arm to the other and he could still move both him arms I kinda wondered that too but when I saw his arms were swollen and slightly bruised we took him to the ER and found out he had a buckle fracture in both arms from falling at school. That nurse is still working at his school too!! She gives me dirty looks now every time she sees me

I'm not a "real" nurse either. As in, I'm not an R.N. There is one R.N. for every 4-5 schools in the district and ours is only here one morning a week.

With that said, I have had fairly extensive training in order to do this job. The amount of information I have had to learn in the last nine months is sometimes overwhelming. But one thing I know for sure: we, here in the health office, whether we are a health aide or an R.N. cannot diagnose anything. Period. We can only view the symptoms and make a judgement call.

For the case of pink eye, simply having a "pink" eye doesn't mean squat. It could be allergies, irritation, or a number of other things. The biggest factor in diagnosing pinkeye is the discharge. Plain and simple.

Jenny.


Do I have pink eye?

O_o

Ah yes.... the dreaded pink eye.

I just wanted to also mention that the discharge doesn't necessarily mean pink eye either. Last week I took my 20 month old to the doctor because his eyes were swollen, pink and had green discharge. The doctor declared it was allergies as the skin inside of the eye and the eyeball were not pink. I started him on Benadryl (very small dose) twice a day and it has cleared up.