Teachers can go to the Clinic Too!

[robinmgriffin]

Just a story I wanted to share. I am having a block on how to scrap this event. Suggestions???



I thought it was an ordinary day in Loxahatchee when I fought the mosquitoes on my way to the car this morning. Tropical Storm Fay left so much standing water that our area is now being taken over by the little blood sucking critters. Actually, in Loxahatchee, we have some kind of mutant ones that have grown to the size of hummingbirds. They look like they could pick Logan right off the ground and carry him away. Still, nothing was out of the ordinary when my principal came over the intercom to inform us that the workers have broken another water main and we can’t drink the water, students would be getting water bottles shortly. Then, during lunch, he announced, “Teachers, if you are in your classroom, please flush your toilet at this time. If it overflows, call the office.” Only in Loxahatchee! Gee, we have to interrupt a lesson to flush our toilets and wait for it to possibly overflow. Gross, but still nothing new to us in our little backwoods school. Since my class was in the cafeteria we had to pass on the toilet flushing until later. We walked our normal route back to the classroom, and I had my normal 3 or 4 students raise their hands to use the restroom. I allowed a little girl to go do her business while I began our next ordinary lesson. About 2 minutes passed and my students started calling out, “Mrs. Griffin, why are you talking so funny?” I shook my head and promptly asked, “Thut do hoo mean, I thalk funny?” My hand raced toward my mouth and I realized that my tongue had started to swell. “Thuh, Oh! I think Mrs. Grithin theeds to go to the clinic!” I sputtered. A little boy in the back shouted, “You mean teachers can go to the clinic too?” I just giggled and quickly pushed the button to call the office. Before they replied to my call, the little girl emerged from the bathroom and sang out, “Umm, Mrs. Griffin, the toilet just overflowed and it got my behind all wet!” “Great! I thess we can go to the clinic tothether!” I said sarcastically as the office clerk finally buzzed us back. “Can I help you?” she asked kindly. “Yeth, I theed a thanitor to mop our overthowed thoilet, and a substithute to cother my class since my thung and throat is thwolen.” Hesitantly she replied, “OOOOOK, um, someone will be there shortly.” Within seconds a replacement was in my room and I was on my way to the hospital in an ambulance. Gee wiz, this wasn’t anything ordinary. I have had a history of allergies and anaphylaxis, but never a swollen tongue, cheeks, and throat. I didn’t even break out in a rash, and what did I eat that would cause such a reaction. My simple brown bag lunch, which I have been eating every ordinary day of this ordinary year, consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a sliced green apple, and a diet coke. The paramedics claim I may have developed an allergy to peanut butter overnight, keep in mind, this is the same paramedic that couldn’t even start my IV and gave up so the nurses could do it when we got to the hospital. Anyhoo, we arrived at the hospital where my two good friends met me as they rolled my stretcher out of the rescue vehicle and into the hallway of the crowded Emergency Room. (to be continued…….got to go to bed now my Benadryl is kicking in!)

Part Two “Anxiety is Born”
I was so relieved when I was transferred from the stretcher to the bed in the hallway. I have severe anxiety when it comes to being confined in a stretcher. In 2003 I was in a car accident on 595 where I lost control of my car, fish-tailed for half a mile across 4 lanes of traffic, and spun 360 degrees slamming into the guard rail. What I remember most is the idea that I actually gave up. I pulled my hands off the steering wheel, covered my face with my arms, and waited to be hit by another vehicle. I pictured a semi t-boning me and ending my life at only 23 years of age. In that moment, my life flashed before me and I realized just how blessed I really am. Fortunately, no other car was involved. I hit my head upon impact into the wall and was knocked unconscious. I don’t think it was for long, because when I came to, the paramedics had not even arrived. People were banging on my windows and shouting at me. I couldn’t move. I was in shock. I remember watching the airplanes take off and land from the Ft. Lauderdale airport I was facing. I was scared and confused. The rescue team arrived and put that horrible confining thing around my neck. They restrained me to a board and trapped me on the stretcher. To me, it was like being put in a strait jacket. I had no control. With that, my anxiety was born.
I begged the school nurse not to call the paramedics because I knew I would be strapped to a stretcher and be forced to face those horrifying memories again. When the paramedics arrived I felt the storm of anxiety beginning to take over. I didn’t see a stretcher in the office, I saw a cage. The ambulance was a prison. However, now that I think back about her decision, I have to thank her, she probably saved my life. If my throat had begun to close any further, the paramedics would be able to keep my airway open. If you have ever experienced anxiety before, you know how cloudy it becomes when making rational decisions. It just doesn’t happen.
Once I was placed comfortably on the bed in the ER, the anxiety began to vanish as quickly as it had set in. I was so happy to have two familiar faces nearby. The nurse introduced herself and then promptly kicked my friends out to wait in the waiting room. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t know when Jon would arrive, I wasn’t even sure if anyone really got in touch with him. It wasn’t long though, before my rebel friend had snuck back in to keep me company. Boy do I love friends who can disregard the rules at just the right time! We turned the situation into a party and joked around. We started wondering why it was taking Jon so long to get there. About 20 minutes later, Jon finally arrived. Not with a happy face, mind you. He informed us that he was in such a rush to get to the hospital, that his foot turned into lead and he was pulled over for speeding. Nice one! Telling the cop that you are speeding to get to your wife in the hospital should get you out of a ticket right. Wrong! This cop was going to make him wait as long as possible, just to teach him a lesson. “Well, you would be there by now if you didn’t speed and get pulled over now wouldn’t you,” the arrogant cop told Jon. He took his sweet time writing out the stupid ticket too! Jon was so upset, that he didn’t even look at the amount on the paper, he just wanted to get to the ER.
By this time, I had already had an IV and was pumped with Benadryl and steroids to flush out all the histamines in my system. They wanted to keep me there for at least another hour just to observe and make sure the reaction wouldn’t return. The meds made me feel a bit woozy and drowsy, but it was impossible to sleep in that busy ER. Right behind me there was a teenage boy who suddenly went into a seizure, his grandmother ran out screaming, “Help, somebody help!!” An absent minded nurse had forgotten to raise the side rails on the kid’s bed and the poor kid fell out of the bed during his convulsions and cracked something in his body. The entire staff came running into the room, put him on a board, stabilized his neck and spine, and zoomed him off somewhere. Guess that’s a law suit in the near future, eh? Then we saw the same team of paramedics that had brought me in returning with an adult male auto accident victim. He was crying hysterically and shouting, “I can’t feel my leg!” Whoa, and here I am whining about a swollen tongue! Turns out we knew the crying man, he had put the granite countertops in our kitchen. We found this out when our builder showed up to visit the guy. The nurses had just hauled the man up for an MRI so our builder stayed and proceeded to tell us his own miraculous story of survival. Back in March he was cleaning out a shed or storage unit and found his old gun. He struggled to get it out of the holster when it went off and shot him the chest. It took 30 minutes before anyone even found him. The bullet just grazed his heart. He died on the operating table, but was revived. They put him in a coma for 30 days and kept him hospitalized for 3 months. He even showed us his striking battle wounds. Wow! It really brings things into perspective when you think about the many people who are in a worse situation than you are.
I never learned what caused the allergic reaction, could have been the peanut butter, the mosquito spray that was dropped overnight, who knows. I did learn, however, that life is too fragile to just cover your face and wait to be hit by oncoming traffic. You have to live every moment to the fullest and conquer every battle in life head on. Which reminds me, I plan to go get a scratch test and find out what started this whole thing so I can put on my boxing gloves and start the match.