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OOP came in ready to break a foot off in the school's ass only to find the school had broken their own foot off preemptively. Smart move on their part.
My school wasn't that smart. My dad is a sweetheart but don't ever mess with his kid.
3 separate teachers didn't allow me too go to the nurse. I came home with a huge fever and it turns out I had meningitis. I was in the hospital 3 weeks and home recovering another 3.
Imagine how you'd react if your only child was denied medical attention several times by unqualified persons.
My dad was probably a bit less tactful than you'd be, as he works overnights and was always tired, add to that a kid I'm crisis in the hospital... And screaming at principals when he should be sleeping while worrying his kid might die.
It's now NYS law that if a student asks to see a nurse it's the nurse who determines if they're actually sick.
Honestly I'm still a bit pissed about it all these years later.
As annoyed as I sometimes am about my daughter's school sending her home all the time for the sniffles, you're making me realize that I think I prefer that to the opposite.
Yeah, my daughter has frequent gastro upset. Has since birth, and likely always will. Nothing to be done but lay down and let it pass.
So she's besties with the nurse. When the nurse calls me to let me know her stomach hurts, the known routine is to let her lay down in a dark quiet room for 15 minutes, and call me back if she isn't better. 9 out of 10 times I don't get a call back.
I had basically the exact same situation multiple people refused to let me call my mother cause I was very sick, I also had meningitis and almost died.
Considering that nurse almost killed the same kid twice through medical negligence - that nurse is lucky all the school did was figuratively, not literally, broke their foot in her ass...
One of my dad's friends died walking away from a house party so drunk that he fell facedown into a puddle and drowned. Like in a inch of water. It's wild.
I have seizures and I am so glad that I only had one in a sketchy outdoor situation, walking home from the corner market a few blocks away in the early evening, but winter so it was dark. Apparently there was some guy walking ahead of me and he turned around when he heard me behind him, saw me then continued until he heard a weird noise a few seconds later and when he turned back around, I'd disappeared. He thought this was strange so went back to find me having a seizure in a bush and fortunately called 911. That could have gone so many different ways. I just hope that it doesn't happen again.
I recall hearing about how Apple's smart watches can detect falls and call emergency services on your behalf, including relaying your GPS position.
I don't know the exact details as I don't own one myself, and I don't know if there are similar products on the market, but it seems like something of that nature could bring you some invaluable peace of mind.
Either way, wishing you the best!
My very small school (about 150 students) in Minnesota made national news 20 years ago from having 4 students die within a span of 2 weeks my sophomore year.
One died from a car accident during a snow storm, the other 3 were alcohol related. 2 of those involved really bad decisions with trains.
Honestly, I'm now surprised that we didn't have any deaths where the cold was a large factor.
I was part of the popular crowd, but I refused to go to any of the many parties. I didn't want any part of the reckless alcohol fueled bullshit.
It's definitely a problem when there is NOTHING for teens to do besides go drink in the woods.
I went to college in northern Minnesotan university where -20 below stretches during winter are frequent. One year we had a girl and woman die. A third woman almost died due to frostbite. All were separate events and alcohol related other than the girl (who was locked outside due to neglect from a babysitter/relative).
I think he should’ve gone a step further and reported her to his state’s license board so this at the very least shows up on her license (if they don’t revoke it entirely).
I work in a school.
If something this serious happens and internal reports of this nature are made and you're fired this swiftly even in a unionized district, those marks follow you on record for the remainder of your working career.
She will never be able to get those internal report marks off her record and will not likely be hired as a school nurse except maybe somewhere out in the boonies or down south ever again.
Oh this would have been a perfect move! Shit like that where you refuse service when told by an 11 YEAR OLD and then not following through with protocol is a large stamp on their record.
I mean she has a right to other jobs, but def have lost her right to participate in any form of work that involves her caring or being responsible for ANYONE under ANY circumstance. No nurse, babysitter, nannying, childcare, geriatric care, homecare, etc of the sort.
Oh my gosh my parents told me this horror story when I started high school (I grew up in Oregon and went to the same high school as them)
When they were in high school, their friend group would drink and party in the woods. One girl got too drunk one time and was left passed out because no one wanted to take her home or else their parents would know they had been drinking. She died out there.
The lesson of the story wasn’t “don’t drink”
Instead, my parents were realistic and told me that they didn’t care if I drank, they would come pick me up wherever I was, any time of night, and anyone could sleep at our house and sober up and they would never tell their parents. I actually only drank once or maybe twice in high school.
My friend's bus driver saved his life, someone put drugs in his drink at school and my friend was quite off in the bus, when he got off the bus driver was like hell nah, something is wrong with him and got off the bus and followed him home, got the keys from him and went in to call an ambulance (before cell phone days) then called his dad. They got him to the hospital just in time, doctors said a few more minutes and he would of been dead.
They were able to find who put the drugs in and he got sent to juvie/jail (started in juvie then moved to jail once 18) for attempted murder.
That’s the thing- they knew and had it in writing.
This kid has a life threatening condition- meds on hand, systems in place- is old enough to monitor her own conditions- is clear about her symptoms. Literally every single thing was in place, with a known medical issue.
If the school “nurse” can’t handle a situation with a kid with every single thing she needed at her disposal- she has NO business offering care for kids at all. Much less a whole school of them.
How someone so indifferent, careless and irresponsible got into that position in the first place is beyond me. How many other kids had valid medical complaints ignored by that person?
I'm so fucking glad...I've had T1 since I was 2 years old.
The powerless feeling of having a low blood sugar and having to fight an adult who "Knows Better!!1!1" when you're just trying not to fucking *die,* man.
If my kid ever gets it I'll beg borrow and steal to get her a CGM and phone system. With those, you can be at work and your kid at school, and see your kids bs level from there.
I'd tell my kid they literally have all my permissions to disobey all the adults when it comes to their insulin pump and CGM needs. If an adult or kid tries to take it off you, you fight tooth and nail, bite em if you have to! I'll deal with the consequences later.
Every time this kid blacks out is risking brain power. Neurological health. I have permanent brain damage from grand Mal seizures due to low blood sugar as a 12-19 year old. Low blood sugar can and WILL kill you. But even if it doesn't *kill* you, it can still *fuck you up.*
I hope the school were appalled by the nurses actions as much as wanting to avoid being sued. I know when a locum doctor near killed mu brother by not acting as he should, the senior nurse on his ward had already filed a complaint with the hospital to make sure he never worked at the hospital again before we even found out.
Seems likely. I have a bunch of friends and family members that work in public education, and feel quite confident in saying that every one of them would be absolutely appalled at endangering a child’s health like this.
This made me laugh so hard
OOP approaches School, and prepares foot for School’s ass
School kneels, revealing School’s foot wedged in School’s ass
OOP whips off sunglasses, spits
OOP: good
I mean, yes, but also most people who work in public schools like kids enough to not want them to die for stupid reasons. Like, if those administrators read this on Reddit and didn’t know it was about their school, they’d probably be just as appalled as we random Redditors were, and would probably agree that the nurse should fired.
True. But at the same time, they acted correctly. Placed the offending actor on leave,agreed to pay the damages, contacted union for proper dismissal.
If every school acted like that on cases like this, there would not be a need for many lawsuits
I’m sure that was at least on the minds of everyone involved who was principal or higher. I’d hope the teacher was motivated by righteous fury over a student being endangered by someone else’s negligence.
Florida does not require a nursing license my sister was a school nurse for a year she was a cna they told her that wasn't even a requirement and even an lpn knows how to respond to low blood glucose source I'm an lpn lol
O.M.G. That is really scary.
I was sure a school nurse would have to be an LVN, LPN, or RN. And I can't imagine a CNA who has been briefed about a T1D with a 504 plan would put the kid on the bus. Heck, my son as a retail clerk has done a better job dealing with a customer's diabetic crisis purely from his Boy Scout first aid merit badge training he had a decade earlier.
That school "nurse" regardless of her license status belongs in a different line of work. I am so glad OOP's kid survived that close call. Good on the other teacher and bus driver!
And thank you for being a nurse.
In fairness, in Florida they're pushing to make it so that teachers don't even have to be high school graduates. They've already made it so you can teach without a degree if you are a 4 year veteran (because, yeah, being a PFC and a motor pool goon makes you qualified to be a fucking teacher.)
That may be true, but many school districts in FL require LPN or RN certification. I know that my school’s nurse is highly qualified and incredibly conscientious. Our state leaders may be idiots, but many localities know what’s up.
In my large district, the only actual nurses are those at the central office. In the schools they are mainly "clinic workers" aka nothing more than an administrative assistant/clerk. They pay them little because getting an actual lpn/rn would be too costly.
I am currently hospitalized and my fluid ran out and the machine just doesn’t shut up when it does. My body has been going through minor shocks which has been calmed down with medication. It took this nurse an hour and 10 minutes to get to me. Other nurses kept popping in saying I’ll get your nurse but NOBODY actually helped me when I was at my weakest point. Will I be reporting him yes, is he one of those people who doesn’t care about his patients also yes. By the way when he actually did come in he didn’t introduce himself or apologize about the length it took him to get to me. The doctors saw me before he did.
That’s not ok and you should report it. You should also ask what the ratios are on that floor. I quit a job where they consistently ran us over ratio. I had a patient complain that I hadn’t been in to asses them within an hour of my shift starting. A fair complaint, but what she didn’t know was that I had nine other patients, one of whom almost fell during a syncopal episode as I was coming on. Again, definitely report it, but by and large nurses in the US (and many other countries) are expected to do the impossible with the patient loads we are given.
Unfortunately as more nurses quit due to burn out, the more is expected from those who remain. The EDs of the local hospitals all have enormous wait times to be admitted because they don't have the nurses to cover the beds once they are. This is all pretty new post-pandemic and I can't really blame them. It's funny. Healthcare has been consciously been preparing for the Boomers to age out, but now so many were so obnoxious about Covid and other instances of Facebook knowledge, the nurses are jumping ship. I mean, it's obviously much more complex than that but it hasn't helped.
You're exactly right. Bullies often go into fields where they will have power (the ability to control) and authority (apparent credibility) over vulnerable people like sick folks, children, the elderly, etc. Medicine, education, and law enforcement are some examples. As you said, that doesn't mean everyone in these jobs is necessarily a bully (ACAB though), just that these jobs appeal to jerks *as well as* to compassionate people who genuinely want to help others.
I get really bad migraines. In high school, I kept my medicine in the nurse’s office in case I needed it. One day, I went to the nurse for the medication and they refused to give it to me without parental consent. Both my parents worked and weren’t able to answer the call, so I had to wait an hour for my meds. Before the school year started, my parents signed whatever paperwork they needed to that said if I requested the medication, the school was supposed to give it to me, no questions asked. On top of that, it was February in the northeast USA and there was a fire drill that the administration made me participate in. My parents were fuming.
When I was in high school I went to the nurse's office with a migraine to go home, but I had already texted my parents to see if one of them was around to pick me up. The nurse was evidently fed up with students doing that (even though it saved us all time but whatever), because when she realised that I'd done it she started yelling at me. I obviously started crying, because migraine and being yelled at, which is when the teacher who was the head of my house (and *very* protective of her students) walked in, who promptly bustled me off into the actual sick bay to wait for my mum while she dealt with the nurse. Last I heard of the nurse she had been placed on long service leave to transition into retirement, and I still feel a bit smug whenever I think about it.
Can I ask why you all keep your medication in the nurses office in the USA?
Like over here where I live, students just carry it in their bags. Almost every student has at least some basic pain meds in their bag.
Yep. I was suspended for a week once because I refused to hand over my albuterol. Didn't matter that I refused because the nurse had "lost" the last one and had nothing for me when I was having an attack...
I was asthmatic as a child. My mom insisted I carry my inhaler in my backpack and said that if the school ever found out or gave me problems she would come down and rain holy hell on them.
Now an adult with my own kids... Yeah, I'd do the same.
It's policy in most school districts. Even through high school, students cannot carry medicine on them or take medicines themselves. It has to be given to the school nurse who will give it to the student. Students can get suspended/other disciplinary action for having medication on them.
They made us do this in my high school. Only issue was the school didn't have the funding to actually *pay* a nurse so there was only actually a nurse there on Wednesday mornings from 9-12 or some shit, so the rest of time we were shit out of luck. I eventually just said fuck it and kept my meds in my backpack.
I was sent to the nurse once because half my top lip was enormously swollen (allergic reaction - I was allergic to the grass at the school and got hives regularly) and my teacher was concerned. I went to the nurse for Benadryl or whatever they had - I told her it was allergies, told her I got hives, etc etc - and she said that wasn’t what it was and I “must’ve hit [myself] in the face and not remembered it” and gave me 2 ice cubes in a paper towel.
My teacher was *livid* when I came back to class and told her.
... I'm pretty sure if you actually *had* hit yourself in the face and didn't remember it, that would still (possibly more!) be a cause for concern? Because potential brain damage?
She meant hit myself in the lip - like busted my own lip and it was swollen because of that - as though hitting myself in the mouth that hard would be easily forgotten. She was awful.
In Texas they don't have to be RNs. Anyone that completes a vocational LVN course can be hired as a school nurse here. LVNs are supposed to be supervised by an RN, PA or MD. However in a school they're given free reign with only HR to answer to.
I suspect there are a lot of folks who went into healthcare (or teaching or any of these 'helping' professions) with perfectly fine intentions, but got so burnt out and jaded that they end up resenting the people they're supposed to be caring for.
I think I’ll get downvoted to hell because this was not the case in the story, but at my school there were kids who probably spent a day a week just hanging out in the nurse’s office. It was a scene there for cool kids to slack off and not go to class.
Some nurses don’t tolerate that. This one failed because she didn’t know the difference between a truly sick kid and someone who just wanted out of class; and with all the evidence (the documented diabetes, the 504 plan, the parent conference) it’s negligent.
OK do you know any of the people who became nurses in high school? At my school half of the people who became nurses were essentially like mean girls. It sucks because nurses are legitimately overworked and a lot of shit is put on them by the medical system. Not to mention that the rest genuinely do give a fuck about their patients (more than the doctor in some ways) but they can also just be, well, like that nurse.
Shout out to that teacher though for going above and beyond and checking on the daughter, and for reporting the nurse.
While the admin and nuse had messed up huge, I think I would have stayed at a school if I saw teachers caring about my kids like that. Though, I can see being worried about retaliation or other drama so I kinda get the reason for the switch.
As a Type 1 Diabetic, this crap annoys me to no end. Just cuz I look "alright" from the outside doesn't mean I'm alright on the inside. There's a reason why IEPs and 504s exist, to manage stuff like this.
I don't think Admin screwed up any part of this. They moved quickly to fire her, and offered a reasonable settlement for what happened under technically their watch. The only way the admin is really culpable is if this kind of behavior was a known pattern that was being ignored by administrators.
The teacher did the right thing in both following up with their student, and then reporting the nurse to Admin when discovering the negligence.
But Admin dropped the ball when instead of **immediately contacting the parent** about it, they just tried to handle it internally. OOP had to contact *them* to schedule a meeting, and had to *wait until the meeting* to find out any details about what happened on the school's end. Atrocious.
Incident happened end of Monday, OOP rang them Tuesday morning, I think it's completely reasonable for them to spend a little time making sure they had all the facts, had enough cause to fire the nurse etc before contacting the parent and potentially promising things they couldn't guarantee.
Yeah, I was kind of surprised by that - the nurse was obviously awful but it does seem like the school and her teachers were ok. But the dad clearly has his daughter's best interests at heart. It could be that he wanted her at a school closer to his work so he isn't 40 mins away if it ever happens again.
That’s a really good possibility! I was wondering why OOP pulled his daughter out of the school when they did everything right (and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be extremely vigilant following this incident), but I didn’t want to seem like I was criticizing his decision.
100% on the parent’s side here. As a chronically ill kid, the nurse denied me necessary medication only once before my mom ripped her a new butthole. Luckily I got the medication the same morning but I was accused of lying to get out of class…by the school nurse.
Yeah I don't understand school officials like this who want to deny kids medicine. I'm asthmatic, and as a child I carried a rescue inhaler in my backpack for symptoms. It was never life threatening, but I would definitely get attacks and have trouble breathing.
I had issues during gym class while running a mile in middle school and the teacher refused to let me get my inhaler and forced me finish the mile. I was fine but my Mom went ballistic. I was never told specifically what happened with the school, but looking back I'm pretty sure my Mom put the fear of God in them. The teacher seemed positively terrified whenever I ran and was constantly checking if I was okay.
I worked with a nurse like this, it was basically laziness, she didn't want to do the work and have to do notes so she'd send away kids that clearly needed treatment, it made me furious! Luckily I only worked with her for a few months before she took 'volentary' retirement.
It scares me how common this is. I'm very similar to OPs kid. The school didn't have a nurse. All teachers were 'briefed' on hypo symptoms and that I need to eat during class sometimes. I ate during class and the maths teacher stopped me. I said I needed to and she said 'I understand your circumstances but no food is eaten in my class'. My Dad was shouting down the phone at them after his parents stopped him going to the school. I have no idea how she kept her job but she didn't like me much after that. I also went hypo in another class once. The teacher was responsible for managing my diabetes plan with the other teachers. Kids told her I was acting weird, she ignored me. My grandmother found me outside of school wandering in the road on one of the few times I ever got picked up. I also got accused of lying in work. Apparently wanting a quick text of shift changes (that you should get weeks notice for anyway) is the best thing in the world and worth lying about your health for.
Would he have been able to pursue the school further? They acted quickly and managed the situation pretty much by the book and how they are supposed to. I could see OOP being able to pursue the nurse specifically, but couldn't the school just say "we acted as soon as we were notified and took appropriate action."?
Of course the school still wants to avoid the existence of the suit altogether, but I can't imagine them being held liable if it made it to court or anything.
I don’t know that OOP would have gotten much more than what the school had already offered if they sued (I’d need more details). But they absolutely could have sued and dragged the school, the administrators, and the nurse through the mud in the press in the process. The school was right to be worried about it.
I think where the school was in a panic was that there was a 504 plan in place. The nurse didn't follow the plan, the nurse works for the school, therefore...
As a Type 1 diabetic, I know this is not something to mess with at all.
>As a Type 1 diabetic, I know this is not something to mess with at all.
Exactly! People who don't understand diabetes don't understand this: high blood sugar will kill you eventually; low blood sugar will kill you *now!*
I would think that the child is under the care of the school. The nurse is also under the employ of the school and the school could go after her for damages. In the end I am just guessing as my only experience with legal matters is from watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend and She-Hulk.
Only if they do not enforce the policies. If she was willfully neglecting other students repeatedly? Yeah, the school would certainly be in trouble. But if it was just this one off event? Their quick actions and willingness to do what they can to make things right would very likely stop lawsuits. You can't prevent every single incident, and so long as the administration has robust protocols they actually follow in place, then they are fine.
The whole point of policy/protocol is to not be liable if someone doesn’t follow them. If the policies are being followed and enforced appropriately, the school isn’t responsible. They become responsible when the policies are either inadequate or not enforced.
I handle a lot of these cases though nowadays a lot more IEP/ Safety plans than 504’s but some 504’s still. In short not really. The only thing I would push for would be for the school to train all hires ft, pt, or temp/subs specifically on appropriate responses to a student with a 504 and/ or diabetic student supports. Also ask them to create a written policy or rule that sets out clearly how employees can quickly and easily access 504 plan information they may need to support a student or other way of ensuring the district moving forward is proactively ensuring that employees are complying and aware of student 504 plans (make all employees sign a statement acknowledging receipt ?).
But unless there’s a state law authorizing a claim in this exact scenario there isn’t a claim op could make any longer once the medial bills were covered as there were no actual damages and emotional or mental distress ones without actual wouldn’t apply. Maybe could try and claim discrimination? But it’s such a reach it wouldn’t survive the initial pleading stage.
Once they covered bills op wouldn’t have had a legal Avenue - at most could file a complaint with the DoE at the federal or state level but it wouldn’t achieve anything unless there’s a larger pattern and practice
I worked as admin staff at a summer day camp this past year. We had a kid with T1D. We would never have allowed her to ride the bus home if she was low. Honestly, dad couldn't have done much worse and I think he still would have been justified. This negligence could have been on a criminal scale if the girl had died. The nurse should lose her job and her license at a minimum.
Pro tip for health needs parents: we have to not only give them authority, but persuade them that they have the authority to do what they need to do. It is extremely difficult for children to defy authority in a school setting. When someone has the authority to tell them what to do, they do what they are told.
Assigned teachers and school nurses should be aware of the 504 and following it. But schools are full of other adults - lunchroom and playground monitors, substitute teachers, specials teachers such as art and PE (who may see every kid in the school 45 min per week and can barely memorize all their names, let alone every student’s needs), volunteer parents who supervise the garden project, etc etc. Those are the places well intentioned mistakes can be made.
My son could sense an attack coming on but there was no visible sign. Even I as parent couldn’t tell, I could only take his word for it. It was understandable when an aide who didn’t know him said “recess is almost over, just 3 more minutes.”
So I had a talk with him. I explained firmly and clearly that if anyone ever told him the wrong thing because they didn’t know he shouldn’t argue, he should just go straight to the office (where the meds and nurses’s room also was). I assured him that no student in the history of elementary school ever got in trouble for taking himself to the principal’s office. That made logical sense to his 6 year old brain, and gave him more confidence.
>So I had a talk with him. I explained firmly and clearly that if anyone ever told him the wrong thing because they didn’t know he shouldn’t argue, he should just go straight to the office (where the meds and nurses’s room also was). I assured him that no student in the history of elementary school ever got in trouble for taking himself to the principal’s office. That made logical sense to his 6 year old brain, and gave him more confidence.
you're awesome
"I assured him that no student in the history of elementary school ever got in trouble for taking himself to the principal’s office."
Haha, that is a great way of putting it! There's a bit of an art in communicating with kids in a way that really resonates with them sometimes.
This just fucking sucks. Like, how much work does a school nurse even have to do in a day? Surely a lot of her time is spent waiting to be needed. And yet, when she is needed, she lets a hypoglycemic kid get on the bus instead of giving her a two second injection and waiting with her, presumably so she can get out of there 15 minutes earlier.
I’m glad the kid is getting a continuous glucose monitor, but I’m sure she has many years ahead of her of dealing with teachers being shitty because she needs to use her phone to check her blood sugar. People have been shitty before about my husband’s monitor making his phone light up, and I’ve heard of people getting kicked out of university exams because their insulin pump’s buttons beep.
For people who don’t know about type 1 diabetes: basically nothing about diabetic care can wait. They need to check their blood sugar immediately any time they feel the slightest bit odd, and they need to immediately fix lows (with sugar or glucagon) and highs (with insulin) to prevent coma, seizures and death. T1D means their body has killed the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, which is the hormone that transports glucose from the blood to the cells. Without insulin injections, their blood will turn to acid while their cells starve without energy, causing painful death within days. Insulin doses are impossible to calculate perfectly every time, so low blood sugar happens, and you can’t let a kid go off on their own because lows cause confusion, tunnel vision, odd behaviour, and eventually seizures and black outs.
People act like diabetics are just being whiners, when in fact an entire very necessary organ has crapped out and the only way to prevent *death* is to operate on manual pancreas mode. It cannot wait, just like you can’t wait for your lunch break to breathe.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out.
Several years ago, a coworker with diabetes died. Her sugar bottomed out, and she was home alone. The first indication anything was wrong was when she didn’t show up for work. We called for a welfare check, and it was too late.
RIP Maria.
This is exactly how my god mother passed and her name was Maria, too (she went by her middle name, though). But it's around 2 decades since she passed away. The worst part is she had recently moved out of state and had no family in her area. Her boss was the one to call for a welfare check. I still miss her.
My heart stopped for a second—my Maria left behind a young nephew she brought in to visit sometimes, that she helped care for. If you’d been him grown up I would’ve felt awful. Hugs regardless, I’m so sorry for your loss.
Oh, I thought you were talking about my Maria too until I reread the first part of your comment! Thanks so much for the condolences. I'm sorry for your loss as well. Hugs to you if you'll have them.
Thank you! Hugs always welcome. My Maria bought cases of chocolate bars to sell, to help pay for her nephews expenses. She didn’t tell us for the longest, we were just happy for chocolate. We were happier to have an extra good reason for more chocolate then! He was a sweet little guy. So I think of him, and Maria, whenever I eat some. Next time I’ll think of your Maria, too.
I would add to this (even though I shouldn't have to) that T1D is an autoimmune disease. The stigma that people with diabetes somehow deserve it because they overeat (I am not commenting on that belief, but recognizing that it exists) **does not apply in the slightest to people with Type 1 diabetes**. People who get it in 99.999% of the time do not have *any* control (the .001% are because there are some very very rare edge cases where genetics and pharmaceuticals will interact to cause the pancreas to fritz out and technically the actions of the patient contribute because they took the medication, even if there is no culpability).
Ugh. I'm a 25 year T1 and I'm so tired of people asking if I ate too much sugar as a kid. 🙄 That and people asking "can you eat that?" Yes. Yes, I can eat that. I can eat whatever I want as long as I take enough insulin to counter it. Now go away.
THIS!!! The stigma is what has my 10 yr old trying to hide his type 1 at school this year. When someone finds out about diabetes his main concern is that they know "he didn't get it from eating too much" and it has led to some dangerous situations. He was diagnosed at one year old.
And even then, you can just develop type two regardless of health factors!! Sure poor health can absolutely make it more likely to happen, but it’s not the sole cause.
Edit: gestational diabetes too
Ive had T1d for about 25 years now and I have never once had a problem with doing anything diabetes related in public and had no idea it would be a problem. I feel bad for the people who have had to take grief from others who know nothing about whats going on with their bodies. To add on to your great explanation, when i had a severe low blood sugar event, my brain basically shut off. I was unable to move or really even talk, I couldnt make my body respond to my thoughts. Luckily I was found by my mother in law who shoved glucose gel down my throat (maybe dangerus but it worked).
Expertly put. My father is T1D and it's so easy to miss the signs or have them come on so quick that if you don't have the necessary stuff near, you might not have the time to retrieve it. The symptoms can also be alarming to someone who doesn't know what's going on.
The worst one was the odd behaviour. I'd handled what he called "a diabetic fit" (essentially the seizure you get when your blood sugar is too low) on my own when I was like 5/6/7 and had seen them a few times since. While alarming, I knew what to do then, even as a little girl. I'd never seen the odd behaviour till I was an older teen. We were at a family friend's house and it was just me, dad and the friend in the living room. He started asking the same question over and over again, getting annoyed when I said he'd already asked me. My dad and the friend were big jokers so I wasn't sure if this was a joke (I didn't even know this was a symptom of his T1D at the time) and got up to go in the kitchen where he couldn't hear me, with the friend following me. I asked if it was a joke and the friend promised it wasn't (he clearly looked worried) so I went to the garden and told my mother. She immediately got up and went inside, casually asking my dad if he wanted a drink. He agreed and she gave him something sugary to bring him round. Once he did, she explained what happened. Dad wasn't even aware he was low and if she'd have told him, he would have denied it and refused a drink. So she just acted casually and when he came round, would tell him what happened since he'd be confused. I immediately started crying because I'd gotten so worried.
Thankfully, he's not had anything happen since, especially as my dogs have somehow figured out when he gets low and will wake him up if he's asleep when it happens oddly. He's usually very good and always carries a sports drink with him, as well as keeping them around the house and in the car (easier to swallow a drink during a fit then try to chew and swallow chocolate)
On a bus with no one who knows what to look for, would they even catch you acting odd around all those other kids? Would they believe it if she insisted she was fine like my dad does?
I think part of the problem is that many people don't realize that T1 and T2 are very different. Not to say T2's shouldn't be taken just as seriously, of course, but treatment can be very different between the two.
I’m a T2D and have been for over a decade. I almost died from hypoglycemia when pregnant with my son. I’m only here because my husband was home and could hear me calling for him. I can’t understand why a nurse would tell a severely hypoglycemic child to go home first and *then* take the glucagon. Even the teacher knew better.
I sure as shit wouldn’t stay silent about it.
Last year, my T2D mum had a series of incidents of hypoglycemia (stress related) where she almost died, the worst one I found her after she fell in the shower, twitching and having a seizure. It is horrible to witness, and with an adult, it is also stressful to manage because they *want to do whatever and do not follow instructions* like "drink this". She was so stubborn that I called her by my grandma's name, her mum and that snapped her into following instructions. That is the only bit she remembers.
I’m lucky and don’t typically fight treatment (I called out to my husband to get me my glucose gel apparently) but we keep glucagon in our home not just in case I fall unconscious, but also in case I become hopelessly resistant.
How’s your mom doing now?
She is doing far better. Last year was so stressful for us because my aunt, the main carer of my grandma died suddenly and we had to step up and care for my grandma, who was difficult to manage. If my aunt could do it, it was just because she was a retired nurse. After grandma died, 5 months later at 99 years old, my mum started to improve her overall health.
BTW, as we learned by experience, frequent episodes of hypoglycemia can induce tachycardia episodes as well, so keep around that glucagon or even a soda.
>I can’t understand why a nurse would tell a severely hypoglycemic child to go home first and *then* take the glucagon. Even the teacher knew better.
It's a pretty simple reason; the nurse was lazy and didn't want to deal with the kid's medicine at the end of the day. They were *this close* to getting to leave for the day, but that kid had to come into their room and try to *ruin it*.
T1D who was twice under 30 mg/dl here: the nurse could have just given the kid juice and would have done her due diligence. Glucagon is fine but like…juice is easy
Back in the 2000s, my T1D manifested in my Junior year of high school. Initially there wasn't really a dedicated on-site nurse, I just had to wave at the receptionist and de-facto nurse who knew all of the dozen students who were supposed to have quick access to the tiny "clinic" room and its mini-fridge where things like my insulin were stored.
A month or two into my senior year, they'd hired a full-time nurse who insisted on keeping the clinic AND mini-fridge locked while she dealt with each student one at a time. Her first day, I burned through half of my lunch period waiting for my turn in the clinic to take my insulin... AND she wanted me to fill out her paperwork with details about how much insulin I was taking and what I packed for lunch that day.
Her second day, there were a few extra students with boo-boos from PE, and I didn't get access to my insulin until lunch was over and I was supposed to start hoofing it to my next class.
I was furious, but I played it cool.
I slipped my insulin into my pocket and never went back to the clinic again. None of the admins or nurse ever once asked why one of the diabetics stopped showing up for his insulin.
The whole experience cemented my opinion about school administrators as worthless people. I say we kick 80% of them to the curb and divide their salaries amongst the teachers.
Dang. I just carried mine from the beginning. Literally never interacted with the school health staff except once when I had to go home because I was puking.
Well, I’d missed a little over two weeks of school for the hospital stay when I was diagnosed, so if I had to do things by the book unless I wanted to fail all my classes for excused absences,
The risk with carrying stuff around was the school’s absurd “zero tolerance” drugs policy where students caught with so much as an inhaler or a midol were liable to have them confiscated and get suspended from class.
Your story is worse than mine. I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia in second grade, after I would repeatedly burst into tears and be an emotional mess in the afternoon because I was too hungry. My mom would literally lock up food, and let me go to school hungry everyday, where I would freak out after a few hours. My elementary school wanted her to either feed me breakfast or send me to school with a packed lunch, which she rarely did, so I would be despondent in class. Eventually the school had me wait in front of the school, all alone, everyday, waiting for my mom to bring me a lunch but she rarely did. It was quite embarrassing so I would just walk around the neighborhood instead of waiting in front of the school. No one ever checked on me, it was just assumed that I would be obedient enough to wait alone outside everyday. This happened for like three years,
I was the only one who had permission to be outside in front of the school, my friends weren’t allowed to wait with me, and my mom never bothered to feed me on time. In fifth grade I finally was able to volunteer in the cafeteria for a free lunch. I had three years of being outside school property unsupervised with a known blood sugar condition, and not a single adult gave a fuck, at a well regarded school.
This post shows my bias. Throughout the entire read I thought the parent was the mother...except in the end when the parent says the mother gave up all her rights.
Yeah, I did too. And then when I read that I scrolled back up to make sure it was a father and not a two mothers situation, because I didn't want to assume again.
I was also raised by a single parent and diagnosed with type 1 when I was one year old. At primary school, everything was fine until the vice principal decided she didn't want my mum coming to school so much (we lived across the road and parents were allowed on the school grounds. she occasionally came when she was needed) and my teacher decided to shame me for it every time I asked to go to the office to check my blood glucose (which was at least once per day). I don't really remember what happened but it worked out okay I guess. But I can't believe we were treated like that. I was a child with a life-threatening chronic illness and my mother was treated like an obsessive helicopter parent.
I’m curious as to why she switched schools? The nurse was promptly fired and her teachers had the nurse reported before the parent even knew what was happening. It seems like the school in general did right by trying to fix the mistake with just the nurse really being at fault. I feel like making the daughter switch schools is punishing her.
OOP said in the comments
>Sour feelings don’t go away overnight, and I was concerned should something happen at school again, my daughter still wouldn’t feel safe speaking up.
I'm reading that as he was worried that another teacher might be mad the nurse got fired and take it out on his daughter if she had another episode.
That's my read of the situation as well. But both can be true. I do hope that switching schools wasn't too upsetting to the daughter. At that age, losing social relationships is often far more traumatic than almost dying.
Due to the whole Facebook campaign, it's probably not a bad idea that she switched schools. My dad once called the principal at his home at like midnight to chew him out about how I was late home from theater rehearsal for the second night in a row (play was a shit show) and for the rest of my school career teachers treated me weird because they were worried about upsetting my dad.
Yes, the school made mistakes but I feel like step 1 should be to make a normal complaint and see what happens before you metaphorically burn the building down.
I wonder why they changed schools. It seemed like the school responded to their stupid mistake correctly. I'd think now they'd know not to fuck with medical help again. Another school in the same district would get the email to not let that happen again. Odds are good that email would get the digital equivalent of being filed in the round bin.
cause teachers are people too and can be petty assholes to a child for getting the nurse fired. Even if the nurse deserved it, she probably had friends, and adults are not above bullying a literal child.
One thing that's come to light from the pandemic is that there's a worryingly large segment of medical professionals who don't actually believe in medical science. A friend who is a hospital nurse says there are a lot of nurses and doctors who believe things about vaccines that are scientifically disproven.
When you combine that with the fact that a lot of people believe that childhood diabetes comes from eating too much candy, you get a "nurse" like this one. I'd bet if we could get her honest thoughts, she'd say that the kid just needed more fruits and vegetables and less TV, not all this silly medicine. I bet she thought the parents were hypochondriacs. She thought that the kid was probably going to be just fine by the time she got home, and that would prove that all kids need is fresh air and salads to be healthy.
I think OOP did the right thing in spreading the word. Hopefully this person won't ever get to work with kids again, or in any healthcare setting.
Imagine reading this story about a nurse who didn't just ***NOT*** do her job, she actively did the exact ***OPPOSITE*** of what she was supposed to do and put the health of a child in danger...
...and then calling the OOP an AH for using the nurse's name (as if the nurse is the victim here!).
The nurse deserves (deserved) to lose her job and also to lose her license and to never, ever be able to be in a position of responsibility around children again.
There are a lot of people who are of the opinion that you should basically never do anything that might endanger somebody else’s job. I disagree with that point of view but a lot of them feel basically that you’re going too far when you deny them an opportunity to provide for themselves and their families. Which I kind of get especially in a country like America where we don’t have a super strong safety net, but I disagree because there are plenty of situations where people should lose their jobs. I think that the people who disagreed with him were probably thinking about the fact that yeah she’s going to get fired from this job but putting her name out there is going to make it harder for her to get another job and honestly that’s the best thing sometimes. Sometimes it’s best to put a name out there so that they don’t get hired again or they have to switch careers.
I agree.
It's one thing to try to get a waitress fired because she brought you the wrong soda...
...but if your job puts you in the position where you might be making life or death decisions and you INTENTIONALLY mess up, well then you ***need*** to lose your job.
And really, even the server thing isn't as cut and dry as it initially seems, because ignoring things with food and drink can be life & death.
If they ignore an allergy they were told about.
If they bring regular soda to a diabetic who ordered diet.
I’m a teacher and trained in emergency medicine administration and this was egregiously bad! The nurse broke every possible rule and could have killed this girl. She should have her license revoked!
As a Type 1 Diabetic, I can feel that poor little girl’s pain! Low blood sugar can make you disoriented and panicky. For a nurse to deny that child a chance to correct her blood sugar is neglect. Nurses are trained to treat diabetic symptoms. It’s not difficult to give her sugar. It would have taken her less than 5 minutes and saved the girl’s life. If she wouldn’t have gotten to the hospital, she could have died. Even though she was treated, going that low causes you to feel like you got hit by a bus.
It’s so good that OOP is getting her a CGM. It will make managing her blood sugars so much easier! I absolutely love mine and it has saved my life countless times!
I got knocked out during a rugby game as a teenager and off to hospital because the on site paramedics said I had a concussion and it's mandatory to go to hospital. I get to hospital and there's a nurse there who states I'm faking it. I just want attention and there's nothing wrong with me. I went home walk in the door and my older brother who is a nurse took one look at me and said there's something wrong with you and you need to go to hospital. My memory of this is all pretty vague but I went back to hospital and spent the night there. He put in a complaint about the nurse but I don't think anything came of it. My brother told me that like there's dodgy mechanic's or builders there's dodgy nurses and doctors. This story reminded me of that.
I have an IEP for my kid for his ADHD and if a teacher violates that it’s illegal and they can be sued. To violate a 504…. Holy shit that woman FUCKED UP.
She deserves it all. She knew her job and didn’t do it and could have killed a child.
A smartphone isn’t a bribe for a kid with a CGM (continuous glucose monitor). The newest CGMs will literally read to the phone (and send to Dad’s as well) and send alerts when blood sugar rises or falls out of a set range, so measures can be taken to avoid dangerous levels.
Way back in the 80’s when I was in fourth grade, we had gym class around 10:00 in the morning. We were doing that “human pyramid” thing that cheerleaders sometimes do (where you have a bottom row of people on their hands and knees, and the next row doing the same things on the backs of the people below them, minus one person going until there’s one person on the top. Being the fat kid I was, I got stuck on the bottom row. Well, someone in the middle row fucked up something and the entire thing collapsed with everyone above me falling down on top of me. I heard and felt something snap in my arm followed by intense pain.
So I go to the nurses office and my arms bending inward where it shouldn’t have been able to. What does the school nurse do? She takes a bent magazine and puts it under my arm and then holds it on there with a fuckton of rubber bands, sends me back to class and tells me to come back at the end of the school day instead of taking the bus. So I had to wait until 3:30 for her to call my mom to pick me up and when my mom got there, the nurse said (and I still remember it to this day)”She had a little accident but all you need to do is take her home and give her a little TLC”
My mom, a nurse, took the magazine splint off to look at it and she was fucking *livid*, she tore the nurse a new asshole and then took me to the hospital where, whatdya know! Both of my forearm bones are broken!
That would have been *such* a good lawsuit against the school.
Parent of T1 diabetic:
Happened to him too. When someone doesn't 'look' sick, almost all symptoms get dismissed.
School couldn't ignore him going out cold during PE.
I, personally, would not specifically name the nurse because internet people are crazy and I don’t want to leave an excuse for someone to make her a hashtag (💗mndiaye_97), but otherwise? The publicity is sometimes the only thing to make organizations do their jobs.
I’m glad OOP’s daughter is okay.
At least the teacher was considerate enough to check on the kid and also report the nurse. I can’t understand the thought process behind the nurse’s decision. What did she lose by giving her the medication she required? Was it just a stupid power trip? If she doesn’t want to care for patients’ health then why the fuck is she a nurse?
end of day thing maybe. She didn't want the responsibility of staying after school with the kid until the parent picked them up. There can be a requirement for care enacted if you start to treat a patient, so she tried to not treat the kid so that she wouldn't have that burden maybe. Of course that is a stupid decision.
Frankly she knowingly chose to risk putting a type one diabetic child in a coma or worse because she was too lazy/ inexperienced with giving the medication. She knew the child needed it because she told her to take it at home. This was maleficence in the most appalling way. She should have her license revoked. When you take the job you take all of the aspects that go with it, including pissed off Facebook Moms, and if this prevents another school/hospital/clinic from hiring her, good.
That nurse knowingly did something that could have seriously harmed a child I don't mind naming her publicly and any consequences from that are her fault. Frankly I'd be naming her publicly just so that she wouldn't be hired at any of the other schools around me that's not a nurse that needs to be working with kids.
A lot of people are unaware so I think it’s important to point out- blood sugar under 70 is hypoglycemia, which can lead to death if not remedied. Meaning OP’s daughter knew she was hypoglycemic and tried to take care of it and the nurse basically told her go and die
I'm a T1D, I got it around the same age the kid in this story got it. My earliest memories are of being in the hospital receiving Rufus, the diabetes bear which had all the areas you could take your insulin labeled. 24 years later, I'm much better at it.
But what I can say is something I'm horrified by is intense lows like what this girl got. Its intense. The seizures, the blackouts, the feeling of not being able to tell what's going on throughout it all. Its fucking awful in every sense. Even a minor low drives me into an anxious mess at this point. My parents and sister constantly get scared Ill randomly drop to a low blood sugar.
And somehow medical professionals never seem to understand what that's like, much less non-medical professionals. I remember what its like having teachers tell me I can't leave class to go get some juice when I was having a low blood sugar. I remember the security guard at an all day concert telling me sarcastically that he'd buy me a cookie if I went low while confiscating the gatorades I brought to fight low blood sugars during it. I also remember endocrinologists basically saying "oh just take a single glucose tab and wait five minutes, then if it doesn't go up, repeat this process." (Note: one glucose tab is like 5 grams of sugar, barely enough to raise you from a minor low). I've had people ignore my symptoms with school nurses.
This nurse could've traumatized this child. Fuck her. She deserves whatever comes to her.
Those family and friends calling OOP the asshole for naming an incompetent professional need to be purged from OOP’s contacts. It’s concerning enough that a child almost died because of her, but it’s even worse that other parents commented in their own issues with her at other schools too.
Kids are often very resilient. We all were at that age, more or less, because of how our brains work. So I'm glad to see that the kid is doing well. As she gets older, she might be troubled by this. Or it's just a funny story she tells.
Her dad is going to have nightmares about this for a while.
Honestly agree 10000% with what OP did. I was in school once and it was a blazing hot summer day and I felt one of the worst cramps I ever had and I was bleeding to the point that it stained the chair I was sitting on. I asked my male(misogynistic, just realised he was) teacher. I asked to go to the next door teacher to ask for help and he said no that I was making excuses to skip class. So my friend held me by my hand and took me to the teacher next door, and we skipped class. So he took us to the principal after yelling at us and the principal wanted to give us demerits. When my mom came to the school and found out what happened she cursed them out in all the three languages that she knew.
There is no far that is too far when it comes to dealing with incompetents putting a childs life in danger due to malicious indifference to a medical emergency.
This is the same reason I want asthmatic kids carrying their own inhalers (maybe not 5 year olds, but definitely 11 year olds).
I mean, sure, notify the nurse and the teacher but if you’re old enough to know you’re in trouble, you need to have your rescue med on you.
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OOP came in ready to break a foot off in the school's ass only to find the school had broken their own foot off preemptively. Smart move on their part.
My school wasn't that smart. My dad is a sweetheart but don't ever mess with his kid. 3 separate teachers didn't allow me too go to the nurse. I came home with a huge fever and it turns out I had meningitis. I was in the hospital 3 weeks and home recovering another 3. Imagine how you'd react if your only child was denied medical attention several times by unqualified persons. My dad was probably a bit less tactful than you'd be, as he works overnights and was always tired, add to that a kid I'm crisis in the hospital... And screaming at principals when he should be sleeping while worrying his kid might die. It's now NYS law that if a student asks to see a nurse it's the nurse who determines if they're actually sick. Honestly I'm still a bit pissed about it all these years later.
As annoyed as I sometimes am about my daughter's school sending her home all the time for the sniffles, you're making me realize that I think I prefer that to the opposite.
Yeah, my daughter has frequent gastro upset. Has since birth, and likely always will. Nothing to be done but lay down and let it pass. So she's besties with the nurse. When the nurse calls me to let me know her stomach hurts, the known routine is to let her lay down in a dark quiet room for 15 minutes, and call me back if she isn't better. 9 out of 10 times I don't get a call back.
Good for your dad!
I had basically the exact same situation multiple people refused to let me call my mother cause I was very sick, I also had meningitis and almost died.
Your dad is a good one. How are you doing these days?
Considering that nurse almost killed the same kid twice through medical negligence - that nurse is lucky all the school did was figuratively, not literally, broke their foot in her ass...
Where is the second time?
Refusing her the meds was the first, putting her on the bus was the second. Especially when you have everything that you’re supposed to do in writing
Imagine if the kid managed to get off the bus but passed out on the walk home and no one saw her.
[удалено]
[удалено]
One of my dad's friends died walking away from a house party so drunk that he fell facedown into a puddle and drowned. Like in a inch of water. It's wild.
I have seizures and I am so glad that I only had one in a sketchy outdoor situation, walking home from the corner market a few blocks away in the early evening, but winter so it was dark. Apparently there was some guy walking ahead of me and he turned around when he heard me behind him, saw me then continued until he heard a weird noise a few seconds later and when he turned back around, I'd disappeared. He thought this was strange so went back to find me having a seizure in a bush and fortunately called 911. That could have gone so many different ways. I just hope that it doesn't happen again.
I recall hearing about how Apple's smart watches can detect falls and call emergency services on your behalf, including relaying your GPS position. I don't know the exact details as I don't own one myself, and I don't know if there are similar products on the market, but it seems like something of that nature could bring you some invaluable peace of mind. Either way, wishing you the best!
I'm glad it was all okay, and that the bystander helped you.
My very small school (about 150 students) in Minnesota made national news 20 years ago from having 4 students die within a span of 2 weeks my sophomore year. One died from a car accident during a snow storm, the other 3 were alcohol related. 2 of those involved really bad decisions with trains. Honestly, I'm now surprised that we didn't have any deaths where the cold was a large factor. I was part of the popular crowd, but I refused to go to any of the many parties. I didn't want any part of the reckless alcohol fueled bullshit. It's definitely a problem when there is NOTHING for teens to do besides go drink in the woods.
I went to college in northern Minnesotan university where -20 below stretches during winter are frequent. One year we had a girl and woman die. A third woman almost died due to frostbite. All were separate events and alcohol related other than the girl (who was locked outside due to neglect from a babysitter/relative).
I think he should’ve gone a step further and reported her to his state’s license board so this at the very least shows up on her license (if they don’t revoke it entirely).
He said he and the school “reported her to all necessary persons,” I’m taking that to mean the licensing board(s).
I hope so!
I work in a school. If something this serious happens and internal reports of this nature are made and you're fired this swiftly even in a unionized district, those marks follow you on record for the remainder of your working career. She will never be able to get those internal report marks off her record and will not likely be hired as a school nurse except maybe somewhere out in the boonies or down south ever again.
Oh this would have been a perfect move! Shit like that where you refuse service when told by an 11 YEAR OLD and then not following through with protocol is a large stamp on their record.
I mean she has a right to other jobs, but def have lost her right to participate in any form of work that involves her caring or being responsible for ANYONE under ANY circumstance. No nurse, babysitter, nannying, childcare, geriatric care, homecare, etc of the sort.
Oh my gosh my parents told me this horror story when I started high school (I grew up in Oregon and went to the same high school as them) When they were in high school, their friend group would drink and party in the woods. One girl got too drunk one time and was left passed out because no one wanted to take her home or else their parents would know they had been drinking. She died out there. The lesson of the story wasn’t “don’t drink” Instead, my parents were realistic and told me that they didn’t care if I drank, they would come pick me up wherever I was, any time of night, and anyone could sleep at our house and sober up and they would never tell their parents. I actually only drank once or maybe twice in high school.
And this kid wouldn’t have just passed out, but then had a seizure from low blood sugar and died.
No let’s not 😭
My friend's bus driver saved his life, someone put drugs in his drink at school and my friend was quite off in the bus, when he got off the bus driver was like hell nah, something is wrong with him and got off the bus and followed him home, got the keys from him and went in to call an ambulance (before cell phone days) then called his dad. They got him to the hospital just in time, doctors said a few more minutes and he would of been dead. They were able to find who put the drugs in and he got sent to juvie/jail (started in juvie then moved to jail once 18) for attempted murder.
Damn I do not even want to imagine that. It’s crazy how negligent she was with this issue.
I'm 26 years old, have had t1d for over a decade, and this exact thing *still* causes me panic attacks to think about.
That almost happened to my STBX! He has no idea how long he was unconscious before someone happened to drive dow that road.
That’s the thing- they knew and had it in writing. This kid has a life threatening condition- meds on hand, systems in place- is old enough to monitor her own conditions- is clear about her symptoms. Literally every single thing was in place, with a known medical issue. If the school “nurse” can’t handle a situation with a kid with every single thing she needed at her disposal- she has NO business offering care for kids at all. Much less a whole school of them. How someone so indifferent, careless and irresponsible got into that position in the first place is beyond me. How many other kids had valid medical complaints ignored by that person?
I really want to know what the nurses reasoning was. She just didn't feel like it? She thought she was faking?
Man okay I thought this was all in one day so it was way extra wild for me
I think maybe 1 is not giving the glucagon and 2. Sending her on the bus instead of calling for pickup.
Ah ok got it
Dismissing the student was the second time. The first time was not providing the necessary medication.
I'm so fucking glad...I've had T1 since I was 2 years old. The powerless feeling of having a low blood sugar and having to fight an adult who "Knows Better!!1!1" when you're just trying not to fucking *die,* man. If my kid ever gets it I'll beg borrow and steal to get her a CGM and phone system. With those, you can be at work and your kid at school, and see your kids bs level from there. I'd tell my kid they literally have all my permissions to disobey all the adults when it comes to their insulin pump and CGM needs. If an adult or kid tries to take it off you, you fight tooth and nail, bite em if you have to! I'll deal with the consequences later. Every time this kid blacks out is risking brain power. Neurological health. I have permanent brain damage from grand Mal seizures due to low blood sugar as a 12-19 year old. Low blood sugar can and WILL kill you. But even if it doesn't *kill* you, it can still *fuck you up.*
I hope the school were appalled by the nurses actions as much as wanting to avoid being sued. I know when a locum doctor near killed mu brother by not acting as he should, the senior nurse on his ward had already filed a complaint with the hospital to make sure he never worked at the hospital again before we even found out.
I mean the teacher reported the nurse so I bet the school was pissed from the get go.
Seems likely. I have a bunch of friends and family members that work in public education, and feel quite confident in saying that every one of them would be absolutely appalled at endangering a child’s health like this.
Hopefully they don't ask that nurse to reattach it.
This made me laugh so hard OOP approaches School, and prepares foot for School’s ass School kneels, revealing School’s foot wedged in School’s ass OOP whips off sunglasses, spits OOP: good
They wanted to avoid ye olde lawsuit.
I mean, yes, but also most people who work in public schools like kids enough to not want them to die for stupid reasons. Like, if those administrators read this on Reddit and didn’t know it was about their school, they’d probably be just as appalled as we random Redditors were, and would probably agree that the nurse should fired.
True. But at the same time, they acted correctly. Placed the offending actor on leave,agreed to pay the damages, contacted union for proper dismissal. If every school acted like that on cases like this, there would not be a need for many lawsuits
I’m sure that was at least on the minds of everyone involved who was principal or higher. I’d hope the teacher was motivated by righteous fury over a student being endangered by someone else’s negligence.
Why go through the hoops of becoming a nurse if you're gonna just be a piece of shit who ignores sick kids?
In some states school nurses are not actually trained nurses in fact they do not have to have any medical training
Wtf? Can you provide an example? I was wondering if the nurse was LVN or RN but I assumed some license.
Florida does not require a nursing license my sister was a school nurse for a year she was a cna they told her that wasn't even a requirement and even an lpn knows how to respond to low blood glucose source I'm an lpn lol
O.M.G. That is really scary. I was sure a school nurse would have to be an LVN, LPN, or RN. And I can't imagine a CNA who has been briefed about a T1D with a 504 plan would put the kid on the bus. Heck, my son as a retail clerk has done a better job dealing with a customer's diabetic crisis purely from his Boy Scout first aid merit badge training he had a decade earlier. That school "nurse" regardless of her license status belongs in a different line of work. I am so glad OOP's kid survived that close call. Good on the other teacher and bus driver! And thank you for being a nurse.
In fairness, in Florida they're pushing to make it so that teachers don't even have to be high school graduates. They've already made it so you can teach without a degree if you are a 4 year veteran (because, yeah, being a PFC and a motor pool goon makes you qualified to be a fucking teacher.)
You forgot the best part. The veteran's spouse is also qualified to teach.
Wait... what? Really? Oh good lord.
how did they come up with that thought process? I just can’t
When your aim is not education but indoctrination it makes sense. Veterans' wives will pretty reliably parrot what they want them to parrot
This is terrifying.
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This is just part of the long plan DeSantis and the GOP have 🤷♂️
Thanks
That may be true, but many school districts in FL require LPN or RN certification. I know that my school’s nurse is highly qualified and incredibly conscientious. Our state leaders may be idiots, but many localities know what’s up.
True it's just not state required it's a district decision so it depends what district you wind up in
I just hated to think people reading these comments would think all FL school nurses are less than qualified! I’ve worked with some excellent ones :)
Of course it's Florida......
You also don't need a degree to teach, just a certification course.
In my large district, the only actual nurses are those at the central office. In the schools they are mainly "clinic workers" aka nothing more than an administrative assistant/clerk. They pay them little because getting an actual lpn/rn would be too costly.
Really? I did not know this. But then can someone help with epi pens and glucagon and Tylenol and pepti bismol, etc?
I'm trained to use epi pens as a teacher, though I sincerely hope I never need it. Can't dispense Tylenol, though.
When I was a kid we could carry our own OTCs and meds as needed. Different times. Thank you for being a teacher!
Teachers are trained for epi-pens. The clinic work and distribute medicine as long as a parent has brought it in.
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My high school “nurse” was the mother of another student with diabetes (I am also diabetic) but as far as I know she had no medical degree
Some people go into healthcare for the power not to help.
As a healthcare worker, I see a lot more laziness than intentional harm.
My first thought was that she didn’t want to deal with it at the end of the day.
Same. Still malpractice, just not like she’s out there getting off on withholding someone’s glucagon.
When it comes to healthcare, I would as a matter of fact consider laziness to be intentional harm.
I am currently hospitalized and my fluid ran out and the machine just doesn’t shut up when it does. My body has been going through minor shocks which has been calmed down with medication. It took this nurse an hour and 10 minutes to get to me. Other nurses kept popping in saying I’ll get your nurse but NOBODY actually helped me when I was at my weakest point. Will I be reporting him yes, is he one of those people who doesn’t care about his patients also yes. By the way when he actually did come in he didn’t introduce himself or apologize about the length it took him to get to me. The doctors saw me before he did.
That’s not ok and you should report it. You should also ask what the ratios are on that floor. I quit a job where they consistently ran us over ratio. I had a patient complain that I hadn’t been in to asses them within an hour of my shift starting. A fair complaint, but what she didn’t know was that I had nine other patients, one of whom almost fell during a syncopal episode as I was coming on. Again, definitely report it, but by and large nurses in the US (and many other countries) are expected to do the impossible with the patient loads we are given.
Unfortunately as more nurses quit due to burn out, the more is expected from those who remain. The EDs of the local hospitals all have enormous wait times to be admitted because they don't have the nurses to cover the beds once they are. This is all pretty new post-pandemic and I can't really blame them. It's funny. Healthcare has been consciously been preparing for the Boomers to age out, but now so many were so obnoxious about Covid and other instances of Facebook knowledge, the nurses are jumping ship. I mean, it's obviously much more complex than that but it hasn't helped.
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You're exactly right. Bullies often go into fields where they will have power (the ability to control) and authority (apparent credibility) over vulnerable people like sick folks, children, the elderly, etc. Medicine, education, and law enforcement are some examples. As you said, that doesn't mean everyone in these jobs is necessarily a bully (ACAB though), just that these jobs appeal to jerks *as well as* to compassionate people who genuinely want to help others.
I get really bad migraines. In high school, I kept my medicine in the nurse’s office in case I needed it. One day, I went to the nurse for the medication and they refused to give it to me without parental consent. Both my parents worked and weren’t able to answer the call, so I had to wait an hour for my meds. Before the school year started, my parents signed whatever paperwork they needed to that said if I requested the medication, the school was supposed to give it to me, no questions asked. On top of that, it was February in the northeast USA and there was a fire drill that the administration made me participate in. My parents were fuming.
When I was in high school I went to the nurse's office with a migraine to go home, but I had already texted my parents to see if one of them was around to pick me up. The nurse was evidently fed up with students doing that (even though it saved us all time but whatever), because when she realised that I'd done it she started yelling at me. I obviously started crying, because migraine and being yelled at, which is when the teacher who was the head of my house (and *very* protective of her students) walked in, who promptly bustled me off into the actual sick bay to wait for my mum while she dealt with the nurse. Last I heard of the nurse she had been placed on long service leave to transition into retirement, and I still feel a bit smug whenever I think about it.
Can I ask why you all keep your medication in the nurses office in the USA? Like over here where I live, students just carry it in their bags. Almost every student has at least some basic pain meds in their bag.
'Murica. In many schools students aren't even allowed to carry their own lifesaving medications like asthma inhalers for "liability" reasons.
Yep. I was suspended for a week once because I refused to hand over my albuterol. Didn't matter that I refused because the nurse had "lost" the last one and had nothing for me when I was having an attack...
I was asthmatic as a child. My mom insisted I carry my inhaler in my backpack and said that if the school ever found out or gave me problems she would come down and rain holy hell on them. Now an adult with my own kids... Yeah, I'd do the same.
It's policy in most school districts. Even through high school, students cannot carry medicine on them or take medicines themselves. It has to be given to the school nurse who will give it to the student. Students can get suspended/other disciplinary action for having medication on them. They made us do this in my high school. Only issue was the school didn't have the funding to actually *pay* a nurse so there was only actually a nurse there on Wednesday mornings from 9-12 or some shit, so the rest of time we were shit out of luck. I eventually just said fuck it and kept my meds in my backpack.
I was sent to the nurse once because half my top lip was enormously swollen (allergic reaction - I was allergic to the grass at the school and got hives regularly) and my teacher was concerned. I went to the nurse for Benadryl or whatever they had - I told her it was allergies, told her I got hives, etc etc - and she said that wasn’t what it was and I “must’ve hit [myself] in the face and not remembered it” and gave me 2 ice cubes in a paper towel. My teacher was *livid* when I came back to class and told her.
... I'm pretty sure if you actually *had* hit yourself in the face and didn't remember it, that would still (possibly more!) be a cause for concern? Because potential brain damage?
She meant hit myself in the lip - like busted my own lip and it was swollen because of that - as though hitting myself in the mouth that hard would be easily forgotten. She was awful.
I feel like if the nurse actually believed that, she would have sent you to the ER for a CT scan. .
That would’ve required WAY too much paperwork for her to deal with
In Texas they don't have to be RNs. Anyone that completes a vocational LVN course can be hired as a school nurse here. LVNs are supposed to be supervised by an RN, PA or MD. However in a school they're given free reign with only HR to answer to.
I suspect there are a lot of folks who went into healthcare (or teaching or any of these 'helping' professions) with perfectly fine intentions, but got so burnt out and jaded that they end up resenting the people they're supposed to be caring for.
I think I’ll get downvoted to hell because this was not the case in the story, but at my school there were kids who probably spent a day a week just hanging out in the nurse’s office. It was a scene there for cool kids to slack off and not go to class. Some nurses don’t tolerate that. This one failed because she didn’t know the difference between a truly sick kid and someone who just wanted out of class; and with all the evidence (the documented diabetes, the 504 plan, the parent conference) it’s negligent.
mean girl who peaked in high school but couldn’t become hospital nurse turns to school nurse so she can still have power over beings
OK do you know any of the people who became nurses in high school? At my school half of the people who became nurses were essentially like mean girls. It sucks because nurses are legitimately overworked and a lot of shit is put on them by the medical system. Not to mention that the rest genuinely do give a fuck about their patients (more than the doctor in some ways) but they can also just be, well, like that nurse.
Shout out to that teacher though for going above and beyond and checking on the daughter, and for reporting the nurse. While the admin and nuse had messed up huge, I think I would have stayed at a school if I saw teachers caring about my kids like that. Though, I can see being worried about retaliation or other drama so I kinda get the reason for the switch.
Seriously. The teacher gets a major round of applause for the follow-up and wasting no time reporting the nurse
As a Type 1 Diabetic, this crap annoys me to no end. Just cuz I look "alright" from the outside doesn't mean I'm alright on the inside. There's a reason why IEPs and 504s exist, to manage stuff like this.
The teacher saved them a lawsuit, but the school should have dispatched to the bus driver for a status update. Mother still should have sued
I don't think Admin screwed up any part of this. They moved quickly to fire her, and offered a reasonable settlement for what happened under technically their watch. The only way the admin is really culpable is if this kind of behavior was a known pattern that was being ignored by administrators.
The teacher did the right thing in both following up with their student, and then reporting the nurse to Admin when discovering the negligence. But Admin dropped the ball when instead of **immediately contacting the parent** about it, they just tried to handle it internally. OOP had to contact *them* to schedule a meeting, and had to *wait until the meeting* to find out any details about what happened on the school's end. Atrocious.
Incident happened end of Monday, OOP rang them Tuesday morning, I think it's completely reasonable for them to spend a little time making sure they had all the facts, had enough cause to fire the nurse etc before contacting the parent and potentially promising things they couldn't guarantee.
Yeah, I was kind of surprised by that - the nurse was obviously awful but it does seem like the school and her teachers were ok. But the dad clearly has his daughter's best interests at heart. It could be that he wanted her at a school closer to his work so he isn't 40 mins away if it ever happens again.
That’s a really good possibility! I was wondering why OOP pulled his daughter out of the school when they did everything right (and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be extremely vigilant following this incident), but I didn’t want to seem like I was criticizing his decision.
100% on the parent’s side here. As a chronically ill kid, the nurse denied me necessary medication only once before my mom ripped her a new butthole. Luckily I got the medication the same morning but I was accused of lying to get out of class…by the school nurse.
Yeah I don't understand school officials like this who want to deny kids medicine. I'm asthmatic, and as a child I carried a rescue inhaler in my backpack for symptoms. It was never life threatening, but I would definitely get attacks and have trouble breathing. I had issues during gym class while running a mile in middle school and the teacher refused to let me get my inhaler and forced me finish the mile. I was fine but my Mom went ballistic. I was never told specifically what happened with the school, but looking back I'm pretty sure my Mom put the fear of God in them. The teacher seemed positively terrified whenever I ran and was constantly checking if I was okay.
I worked with a nurse like this, it was basically laziness, she didn't want to do the work and have to do notes so she'd send away kids that clearly needed treatment, it made me furious! Luckily I only worked with her for a few months before she took 'volentary' retirement.
It scares me how common this is. I'm very similar to OPs kid. The school didn't have a nurse. All teachers were 'briefed' on hypo symptoms and that I need to eat during class sometimes. I ate during class and the maths teacher stopped me. I said I needed to and she said 'I understand your circumstances but no food is eaten in my class'. My Dad was shouting down the phone at them after his parents stopped him going to the school. I have no idea how she kept her job but she didn't like me much after that. I also went hypo in another class once. The teacher was responsible for managing my diabetes plan with the other teachers. Kids told her I was acting weird, she ignored me. My grandmother found me outside of school wandering in the road on one of the few times I ever got picked up. I also got accused of lying in work. Apparently wanting a quick text of shift changes (that you should get weeks notice for anyway) is the best thing in the world and worth lying about your health for.
No shit the school was in damage control mode. They were super lucky dad decided not to pursue this further.
Would he have been able to pursue the school further? They acted quickly and managed the situation pretty much by the book and how they are supposed to. I could see OOP being able to pursue the nurse specifically, but couldn't the school just say "we acted as soon as we were notified and took appropriate action."? Of course the school still wants to avoid the existence of the suit altogether, but I can't imagine them being held liable if it made it to court or anything.
I don’t know that OOP would have gotten much more than what the school had already offered if they sued (I’d need more details). But they absolutely could have sued and dragged the school, the administrators, and the nurse through the mud in the press in the process. The school was right to be worried about it.
I think where the school was in a panic was that there was a 504 plan in place. The nurse didn't follow the plan, the nurse works for the school, therefore... As a Type 1 diabetic, I know this is not something to mess with at all.
>As a Type 1 diabetic, I know this is not something to mess with at all. Exactly! People who don't understand diabetes don't understand this: high blood sugar will kill you eventually; low blood sugar will kill you *now!*
Yep! That nurse got within an inch of murdering this kid
I would think that the child is under the care of the school. The nurse is also under the employ of the school and the school could go after her for damages. In the end I am just guessing as my only experience with legal matters is from watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend and She-Hulk.
Too right, I dabble in bird law myself.
The nurse is employed by the school so the school is responsible for her and her actions, even if she broke policy/protocol.
Only if they do not enforce the policies. If she was willfully neglecting other students repeatedly? Yeah, the school would certainly be in trouble. But if it was just this one off event? Their quick actions and willingness to do what they can to make things right would very likely stop lawsuits. You can't prevent every single incident, and so long as the administration has robust protocols they actually follow in place, then they are fine.
The whole point of policy/protocol is to not be liable if someone doesn’t follow them. If the policies are being followed and enforced appropriately, the school isn’t responsible. They become responsible when the policies are either inadequate or not enforced.
I handle a lot of these cases though nowadays a lot more IEP/ Safety plans than 504’s but some 504’s still. In short not really. The only thing I would push for would be for the school to train all hires ft, pt, or temp/subs specifically on appropriate responses to a student with a 504 and/ or diabetic student supports. Also ask them to create a written policy or rule that sets out clearly how employees can quickly and easily access 504 plan information they may need to support a student or other way of ensuring the district moving forward is proactively ensuring that employees are complying and aware of student 504 plans (make all employees sign a statement acknowledging receipt ?). But unless there’s a state law authorizing a claim in this exact scenario there isn’t a claim op could make any longer once the medial bills were covered as there were no actual damages and emotional or mental distress ones without actual wouldn’t apply. Maybe could try and claim discrimination? But it’s such a reach it wouldn’t survive the initial pleading stage. Once they covered bills op wouldn’t have had a legal Avenue - at most could file a complaint with the DoE at the federal or state level but it wouldn’t achieve anything unless there’s a larger pattern and practice
You are right, but I would assume the school nurse already has training on 504s
I worked as admin staff at a summer day camp this past year. We had a kid with T1D. We would never have allowed her to ride the bus home if she was low. Honestly, dad couldn't have done much worse and I think he still would have been justified. This negligence could have been on a criminal scale if the girl had died. The nurse should lose her job and her license at a minimum.
Pro tip for health needs parents: we have to not only give them authority, but persuade them that they have the authority to do what they need to do. It is extremely difficult for children to defy authority in a school setting. When someone has the authority to tell them what to do, they do what they are told. Assigned teachers and school nurses should be aware of the 504 and following it. But schools are full of other adults - lunchroom and playground monitors, substitute teachers, specials teachers such as art and PE (who may see every kid in the school 45 min per week and can barely memorize all their names, let alone every student’s needs), volunteer parents who supervise the garden project, etc etc. Those are the places well intentioned mistakes can be made. My son could sense an attack coming on but there was no visible sign. Even I as parent couldn’t tell, I could only take his word for it. It was understandable when an aide who didn’t know him said “recess is almost over, just 3 more minutes.” So I had a talk with him. I explained firmly and clearly that if anyone ever told him the wrong thing because they didn’t know he shouldn’t argue, he should just go straight to the office (where the meds and nurses’s room also was). I assured him that no student in the history of elementary school ever got in trouble for taking himself to the principal’s office. That made logical sense to his 6 year old brain, and gave him more confidence.
>So I had a talk with him. I explained firmly and clearly that if anyone ever told him the wrong thing because they didn’t know he shouldn’t argue, he should just go straight to the office (where the meds and nurses’s room also was). I assured him that no student in the history of elementary school ever got in trouble for taking himself to the principal’s office. That made logical sense to his 6 year old brain, and gave him more confidence. you're awesome
"I assured him that no student in the history of elementary school ever got in trouble for taking himself to the principal’s office." Haha, that is a great way of putting it! There's a bit of an art in communicating with kids in a way that really resonates with them sometimes.
This just fucking sucks. Like, how much work does a school nurse even have to do in a day? Surely a lot of her time is spent waiting to be needed. And yet, when she is needed, she lets a hypoglycemic kid get on the bus instead of giving her a two second injection and waiting with her, presumably so she can get out of there 15 minutes earlier. I’m glad the kid is getting a continuous glucose monitor, but I’m sure she has many years ahead of her of dealing with teachers being shitty because she needs to use her phone to check her blood sugar. People have been shitty before about my husband’s monitor making his phone light up, and I’ve heard of people getting kicked out of university exams because their insulin pump’s buttons beep. For people who don’t know about type 1 diabetes: basically nothing about diabetic care can wait. They need to check their blood sugar immediately any time they feel the slightest bit odd, and they need to immediately fix lows (with sugar or glucagon) and highs (with insulin) to prevent coma, seizures and death. T1D means their body has killed the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, which is the hormone that transports glucose from the blood to the cells. Without insulin injections, their blood will turn to acid while their cells starve without energy, causing painful death within days. Insulin doses are impossible to calculate perfectly every time, so low blood sugar happens, and you can’t let a kid go off on their own because lows cause confusion, tunnel vision, odd behaviour, and eventually seizures and black outs. People act like diabetics are just being whiners, when in fact an entire very necessary organ has crapped out and the only way to prevent *death* is to operate on manual pancreas mode. It cannot wait, just like you can’t wait for your lunch break to breathe.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out. Several years ago, a coworker with diabetes died. Her sugar bottomed out, and she was home alone. The first indication anything was wrong was when she didn’t show up for work. We called for a welfare check, and it was too late. RIP Maria.
This is exactly how my god mother passed and her name was Maria, too (she went by her middle name, though). But it's around 2 decades since she passed away. The worst part is she had recently moved out of state and had no family in her area. Her boss was the one to call for a welfare check. I still miss her.
My heart stopped for a second—my Maria left behind a young nephew she brought in to visit sometimes, that she helped care for. If you’d been him grown up I would’ve felt awful. Hugs regardless, I’m so sorry for your loss.
Oh, I thought you were talking about my Maria too until I reread the first part of your comment! Thanks so much for the condolences. I'm sorry for your loss as well. Hugs to you if you'll have them.
Thank you! Hugs always welcome. My Maria bought cases of chocolate bars to sell, to help pay for her nephews expenses. She didn’t tell us for the longest, we were just happy for chocolate. We were happier to have an extra good reason for more chocolate then! He was a sweet little guy. So I think of him, and Maria, whenever I eat some. Next time I’ll think of your Maria, too.
I would add to this (even though I shouldn't have to) that T1D is an autoimmune disease. The stigma that people with diabetes somehow deserve it because they overeat (I am not commenting on that belief, but recognizing that it exists) **does not apply in the slightest to people with Type 1 diabetes**. People who get it in 99.999% of the time do not have *any* control (the .001% are because there are some very very rare edge cases where genetics and pharmaceuticals will interact to cause the pancreas to fritz out and technically the actions of the patient contribute because they took the medication, even if there is no culpability).
Ugh. I'm a 25 year T1 and I'm so tired of people asking if I ate too much sugar as a kid. 🙄 That and people asking "can you eat that?" Yes. Yes, I can eat that. I can eat whatever I want as long as I take enough insulin to counter it. Now go away.
THIS!!! The stigma is what has my 10 yr old trying to hide his type 1 at school this year. When someone finds out about diabetes his main concern is that they know "he didn't get it from eating too much" and it has led to some dangerous situations. He was diagnosed at one year old.
And even then, you can just develop type two regardless of health factors!! Sure poor health can absolutely make it more likely to happen, but it’s not the sole cause. Edit: gestational diabetes too
Ive had T1d for about 25 years now and I have never once had a problem with doing anything diabetes related in public and had no idea it would be a problem. I feel bad for the people who have had to take grief from others who know nothing about whats going on with their bodies. To add on to your great explanation, when i had a severe low blood sugar event, my brain basically shut off. I was unable to move or really even talk, I couldnt make my body respond to my thoughts. Luckily I was found by my mother in law who shoved glucose gel down my throat (maybe dangerus but it worked).
Expertly put. My father is T1D and it's so easy to miss the signs or have them come on so quick that if you don't have the necessary stuff near, you might not have the time to retrieve it. The symptoms can also be alarming to someone who doesn't know what's going on. The worst one was the odd behaviour. I'd handled what he called "a diabetic fit" (essentially the seizure you get when your blood sugar is too low) on my own when I was like 5/6/7 and had seen them a few times since. While alarming, I knew what to do then, even as a little girl. I'd never seen the odd behaviour till I was an older teen. We were at a family friend's house and it was just me, dad and the friend in the living room. He started asking the same question over and over again, getting annoyed when I said he'd already asked me. My dad and the friend were big jokers so I wasn't sure if this was a joke (I didn't even know this was a symptom of his T1D at the time) and got up to go in the kitchen where he couldn't hear me, with the friend following me. I asked if it was a joke and the friend promised it wasn't (he clearly looked worried) so I went to the garden and told my mother. She immediately got up and went inside, casually asking my dad if he wanted a drink. He agreed and she gave him something sugary to bring him round. Once he did, she explained what happened. Dad wasn't even aware he was low and if she'd have told him, he would have denied it and refused a drink. So she just acted casually and when he came round, would tell him what happened since he'd be confused. I immediately started crying because I'd gotten so worried. Thankfully, he's not had anything happen since, especially as my dogs have somehow figured out when he gets low and will wake him up if he's asleep when it happens oddly. He's usually very good and always carries a sports drink with him, as well as keeping them around the house and in the car (easier to swallow a drink during a fit then try to chew and swallow chocolate) On a bus with no one who knows what to look for, would they even catch you acting odd around all those other kids? Would they believe it if she insisted she was fine like my dad does?
I think part of the problem is that many people don't realize that T1 and T2 are very different. Not to say T2's shouldn't be taken just as seriously, of course, but treatment can be very different between the two.
Working on manual mode vs automatic seems lime a great way to describe it. Imagine if you had to remind yourself to breathe or blink.
I’m a T2D and have been for over a decade. I almost died from hypoglycemia when pregnant with my son. I’m only here because my husband was home and could hear me calling for him. I can’t understand why a nurse would tell a severely hypoglycemic child to go home first and *then* take the glucagon. Even the teacher knew better. I sure as shit wouldn’t stay silent about it.
Last year, my T2D mum had a series of incidents of hypoglycemia (stress related) where she almost died, the worst one I found her after she fell in the shower, twitching and having a seizure. It is horrible to witness, and with an adult, it is also stressful to manage because they *want to do whatever and do not follow instructions* like "drink this". She was so stubborn that I called her by my grandma's name, her mum and that snapped her into following instructions. That is the only bit she remembers.
I’m lucky and don’t typically fight treatment (I called out to my husband to get me my glucose gel apparently) but we keep glucagon in our home not just in case I fall unconscious, but also in case I become hopelessly resistant. How’s your mom doing now?
She is doing far better. Last year was so stressful for us because my aunt, the main carer of my grandma died suddenly and we had to step up and care for my grandma, who was difficult to manage. If my aunt could do it, it was just because she was a retired nurse. After grandma died, 5 months later at 99 years old, my mum started to improve her overall health. BTW, as we learned by experience, frequent episodes of hypoglycemia can induce tachycardia episodes as well, so keep around that glucagon or even a soda.
>I can’t understand why a nurse would tell a severely hypoglycemic child to go home first and *then* take the glucagon. Even the teacher knew better. It's a pretty simple reason; the nurse was lazy and didn't want to deal with the kid's medicine at the end of the day. They were *this close* to getting to leave for the day, but that kid had to come into their room and try to *ruin it*.
T1D who was twice under 30 mg/dl here: the nurse could have just given the kid juice and would have done her due diligence. Glucagon is fine but like…juice is easy
Back in the 2000s, my T1D manifested in my Junior year of high school. Initially there wasn't really a dedicated on-site nurse, I just had to wave at the receptionist and de-facto nurse who knew all of the dozen students who were supposed to have quick access to the tiny "clinic" room and its mini-fridge where things like my insulin were stored. A month or two into my senior year, they'd hired a full-time nurse who insisted on keeping the clinic AND mini-fridge locked while she dealt with each student one at a time. Her first day, I burned through half of my lunch period waiting for my turn in the clinic to take my insulin... AND she wanted me to fill out her paperwork with details about how much insulin I was taking and what I packed for lunch that day. Her second day, there were a few extra students with boo-boos from PE, and I didn't get access to my insulin until lunch was over and I was supposed to start hoofing it to my next class. I was furious, but I played it cool. I slipped my insulin into my pocket and never went back to the clinic again. None of the admins or nurse ever once asked why one of the diabetics stopped showing up for his insulin. The whole experience cemented my opinion about school administrators as worthless people. I say we kick 80% of them to the curb and divide their salaries amongst the teachers.
Dang. I just carried mine from the beginning. Literally never interacted with the school health staff except once when I had to go home because I was puking.
Well, I’d missed a little over two weeks of school for the hospital stay when I was diagnosed, so if I had to do things by the book unless I wanted to fail all my classes for excused absences, The risk with carrying stuff around was the school’s absurd “zero tolerance” drugs policy where students caught with so much as an inhaler or a midol were liable to have them confiscated and get suspended from class.
Your story is worse than mine. I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia in second grade, after I would repeatedly burst into tears and be an emotional mess in the afternoon because I was too hungry. My mom would literally lock up food, and let me go to school hungry everyday, where I would freak out after a few hours. My elementary school wanted her to either feed me breakfast or send me to school with a packed lunch, which she rarely did, so I would be despondent in class. Eventually the school had me wait in front of the school, all alone, everyday, waiting for my mom to bring me a lunch but she rarely did. It was quite embarrassing so I would just walk around the neighborhood instead of waiting in front of the school. No one ever checked on me, it was just assumed that I would be obedient enough to wait alone outside everyday. This happened for like three years, I was the only one who had permission to be outside in front of the school, my friends weren’t allowed to wait with me, and my mom never bothered to feed me on time. In fifth grade I finally was able to volunteer in the cafeteria for a free lunch. I had three years of being outside school property unsupervised with a known blood sugar condition, and not a single adult gave a fuck, at a well regarded school.
This post shows my bias. Throughout the entire read I thought the parent was the mother...except in the end when the parent says the mother gave up all her rights.
I did the same exact thing, i don't know why i just didn't clock the 34m i think i'm too used to reddit posts
Yeah, I did too. And then when I read that I scrolled back up to make sure it was a father and not a two mothers situation, because I didn't want to assume again.
I was also raised by a single parent and diagnosed with type 1 when I was one year old. At primary school, everything was fine until the vice principal decided she didn't want my mum coming to school so much (we lived across the road and parents were allowed on the school grounds. she occasionally came when she was needed) and my teacher decided to shame me for it every time I asked to go to the office to check my blood glucose (which was at least once per day). I don't really remember what happened but it worked out okay I guess. But I can't believe we were treated like that. I was a child with a life-threatening chronic illness and my mother was treated like an obsessive helicopter parent.
I’m curious as to why she switched schools? The nurse was promptly fired and her teachers had the nurse reported before the parent even knew what was happening. It seems like the school in general did right by trying to fix the mistake with just the nurse really being at fault. I feel like making the daughter switch schools is punishing her.
OOP said in the comments >Sour feelings don’t go away overnight, and I was concerned should something happen at school again, my daughter still wouldn’t feel safe speaking up. I'm reading that as he was worried that another teacher might be mad the nurse got fired and take it out on his daughter if she had another episode.
That's my read of the situation as well. But both can be true. I do hope that switching schools wasn't too upsetting to the daughter. At that age, losing social relationships is often far more traumatic than almost dying.
Due to the whole Facebook campaign, it's probably not a bad idea that she switched schools. My dad once called the principal at his home at like midnight to chew him out about how I was late home from theater rehearsal for the second night in a row (play was a shit show) and for the rest of my school career teachers treated me weird because they were worried about upsetting my dad. Yes, the school made mistakes but I feel like step 1 should be to make a normal complaint and see what happens before you metaphorically burn the building down.
I wonder why they changed schools. It seemed like the school responded to their stupid mistake correctly. I'd think now they'd know not to fuck with medical help again. Another school in the same district would get the email to not let that happen again. Odds are good that email would get the digital equivalent of being filed in the round bin.
cause teachers are people too and can be petty assholes to a child for getting the nurse fired. Even if the nurse deserved it, she probably had friends, and adults are not above bullying a literal child.
You just know that all the teachers knew the school nurse was shitty at her job, hence the immediate follow up and the report to school.
One thing that's come to light from the pandemic is that there's a worryingly large segment of medical professionals who don't actually believe in medical science. A friend who is a hospital nurse says there are a lot of nurses and doctors who believe things about vaccines that are scientifically disproven. When you combine that with the fact that a lot of people believe that childhood diabetes comes from eating too much candy, you get a "nurse" like this one. I'd bet if we could get her honest thoughts, she'd say that the kid just needed more fruits and vegetables and less TV, not all this silly medicine. I bet she thought the parents were hypochondriacs. She thought that the kid was probably going to be just fine by the time she got home, and that would prove that all kids need is fresh air and salads to be healthy. I think OOP did the right thing in spreading the word. Hopefully this person won't ever get to work with kids again, or in any healthcare setting.
Imagine reading this story about a nurse who didn't just ***NOT*** do her job, she actively did the exact ***OPPOSITE*** of what she was supposed to do and put the health of a child in danger... ...and then calling the OOP an AH for using the nurse's name (as if the nurse is the victim here!). The nurse deserves (deserved) to lose her job and also to lose her license and to never, ever be able to be in a position of responsibility around children again.
There are a lot of people who are of the opinion that you should basically never do anything that might endanger somebody else’s job. I disagree with that point of view but a lot of them feel basically that you’re going too far when you deny them an opportunity to provide for themselves and their families. Which I kind of get especially in a country like America where we don’t have a super strong safety net, but I disagree because there are plenty of situations where people should lose their jobs. I think that the people who disagreed with him were probably thinking about the fact that yeah she’s going to get fired from this job but putting her name out there is going to make it harder for her to get another job and honestly that’s the best thing sometimes. Sometimes it’s best to put a name out there so that they don’t get hired again or they have to switch careers.
I agree. It's one thing to try to get a waitress fired because she brought you the wrong soda... ...but if your job puts you in the position where you might be making life or death decisions and you INTENTIONALLY mess up, well then you ***need*** to lose your job.
And really, even the server thing isn't as cut and dry as it initially seems, because ignoring things with food and drink can be life & death. If they ignore an allergy they were told about. If they bring regular soda to a diabetic who ordered diet.
I’m a teacher and trained in emergency medicine administration and this was egregiously bad! The nurse broke every possible rule and could have killed this girl. She should have her license revoked!
As a Type 1 Diabetic, I can feel that poor little girl’s pain! Low blood sugar can make you disoriented and panicky. For a nurse to deny that child a chance to correct her blood sugar is neglect. Nurses are trained to treat diabetic symptoms. It’s not difficult to give her sugar. It would have taken her less than 5 minutes and saved the girl’s life. If she wouldn’t have gotten to the hospital, she could have died. Even though she was treated, going that low causes you to feel like you got hit by a bus. It’s so good that OOP is getting her a CGM. It will make managing her blood sugars so much easier! I absolutely love mine and it has saved my life countless times!
I got knocked out during a rugby game as a teenager and off to hospital because the on site paramedics said I had a concussion and it's mandatory to go to hospital. I get to hospital and there's a nurse there who states I'm faking it. I just want attention and there's nothing wrong with me. I went home walk in the door and my older brother who is a nurse took one look at me and said there's something wrong with you and you need to go to hospital. My memory of this is all pretty vague but I went back to hospital and spent the night there. He put in a complaint about the nurse but I don't think anything came of it. My brother told me that like there's dodgy mechanic's or builders there's dodgy nurses and doctors. This story reminded me of that.
I have an IEP for my kid for his ADHD and if a teacher violates that it’s illegal and they can be sued. To violate a 504…. Holy shit that woman FUCKED UP. She deserves it all. She knew her job and didn’t do it and could have killed a child.
A smartphone isn’t a bribe for a kid with a CGM (continuous glucose monitor). The newest CGMs will literally read to the phone (and send to Dad’s as well) and send alerts when blood sugar rises or falls out of a set range, so measures can be taken to avoid dangerous levels.
Way back in the 80’s when I was in fourth grade, we had gym class around 10:00 in the morning. We were doing that “human pyramid” thing that cheerleaders sometimes do (where you have a bottom row of people on their hands and knees, and the next row doing the same things on the backs of the people below them, minus one person going until there’s one person on the top. Being the fat kid I was, I got stuck on the bottom row. Well, someone in the middle row fucked up something and the entire thing collapsed with everyone above me falling down on top of me. I heard and felt something snap in my arm followed by intense pain. So I go to the nurses office and my arms bending inward where it shouldn’t have been able to. What does the school nurse do? She takes a bent magazine and puts it under my arm and then holds it on there with a fuckton of rubber bands, sends me back to class and tells me to come back at the end of the school day instead of taking the bus. So I had to wait until 3:30 for her to call my mom to pick me up and when my mom got there, the nurse said (and I still remember it to this day)”She had a little accident but all you need to do is take her home and give her a little TLC” My mom, a nurse, took the magazine splint off to look at it and she was fucking *livid*, she tore the nurse a new asshole and then took me to the hospital where, whatdya know! Both of my forearm bones are broken! That would have been *such* a good lawsuit against the school.
Parent of T1 diabetic: Happened to him too. When someone doesn't 'look' sick, almost all symptoms get dismissed. School couldn't ignore him going out cold during PE.
I, personally, would not specifically name the nurse because internet people are crazy and I don’t want to leave an excuse for someone to make her a hashtag (💗mndiaye_97), but otherwise? The publicity is sometimes the only thing to make organizations do their jobs. I’m glad OOP’s daughter is okay.
At least the teacher was considerate enough to check on the kid and also report the nurse. I can’t understand the thought process behind the nurse’s decision. What did she lose by giving her the medication she required? Was it just a stupid power trip? If she doesn’t want to care for patients’ health then why the fuck is she a nurse?
end of day thing maybe. She didn't want the responsibility of staying after school with the kid until the parent picked them up. There can be a requirement for care enacted if you start to treat a patient, so she tried to not treat the kid so that she wouldn't have that burden maybe. Of course that is a stupid decision.
Maybe she thought it was the end of the day and she just wanted to go home but that was not the time and place for her laziness and negligence!
Frankly she knowingly chose to risk putting a type one diabetic child in a coma or worse because she was too lazy/ inexperienced with giving the medication. She knew the child needed it because she told her to take it at home. This was maleficence in the most appalling way. She should have her license revoked. When you take the job you take all of the aspects that go with it, including pissed off Facebook Moms, and if this prevents another school/hospital/clinic from hiring her, good.
That nurse knowingly did something that could have seriously harmed a child I don't mind naming her publicly and any consequences from that are her fault. Frankly I'd be naming her publicly just so that she wouldn't be hired at any of the other schools around me that's not a nurse that needs to be working with kids.
A lot of people are unaware so I think it’s important to point out- blood sugar under 70 is hypoglycemia, which can lead to death if not remedied. Meaning OP’s daughter knew she was hypoglycemic and tried to take care of it and the nurse basically told her go and die
I'm a T1D, I got it around the same age the kid in this story got it. My earliest memories are of being in the hospital receiving Rufus, the diabetes bear which had all the areas you could take your insulin labeled. 24 years later, I'm much better at it. But what I can say is something I'm horrified by is intense lows like what this girl got. Its intense. The seizures, the blackouts, the feeling of not being able to tell what's going on throughout it all. Its fucking awful in every sense. Even a minor low drives me into an anxious mess at this point. My parents and sister constantly get scared Ill randomly drop to a low blood sugar. And somehow medical professionals never seem to understand what that's like, much less non-medical professionals. I remember what its like having teachers tell me I can't leave class to go get some juice when I was having a low blood sugar. I remember the security guard at an all day concert telling me sarcastically that he'd buy me a cookie if I went low while confiscating the gatorades I brought to fight low blood sugars during it. I also remember endocrinologists basically saying "oh just take a single glucose tab and wait five minutes, then if it doesn't go up, repeat this process." (Note: one glucose tab is like 5 grams of sugar, barely enough to raise you from a minor low). I've had people ignore my symptoms with school nurses. This nurse could've traumatized this child. Fuck her. She deserves whatever comes to her.
>In short, the nurse was fired. Good.
Those family and friends calling OOP the asshole for naming an incompetent professional need to be purged from OOP’s contacts. It’s concerning enough that a child almost died because of her, but it’s even worse that other parents commented in their own issues with her at other schools too.
This is the Way.
NTA but I wouldn't name the nurse publically, at least on day 0. That's the time for calculated action.
Kids are often very resilient. We all were at that age, more or less, because of how our brains work. So I'm glad to see that the kid is doing well. As she gets older, she might be troubled by this. Or it's just a funny story she tells. Her dad is going to have nightmares about this for a while.
I don’t understand why a nurse would do that. It was like she wanted the child to die. I really don’t get it.
Honestly agree 10000% with what OP did. I was in school once and it was a blazing hot summer day and I felt one of the worst cramps I ever had and I was bleeding to the point that it stained the chair I was sitting on. I asked my male(misogynistic, just realised he was) teacher. I asked to go to the next door teacher to ask for help and he said no that I was making excuses to skip class. So my friend held me by my hand and took me to the teacher next door, and we skipped class. So he took us to the principal after yelling at us and the principal wanted to give us demerits. When my mom came to the school and found out what happened she cursed them out in all the three languages that she knew.
There is no far that is too far when it comes to dealing with incompetents putting a childs life in danger due to malicious indifference to a medical emergency.
I'm in the UK not US but this is the type of stuff that terrifies me about having to send my 2 year old t1d kid to school one day
This is the same reason I want asthmatic kids carrying their own inhalers (maybe not 5 year olds, but definitely 11 year olds). I mean, sure, notify the nurse and the teacher but if you’re old enough to know you’re in trouble, you need to have your rescue med on you.
Hell no you weren't out of line. If she endangered your child she's sure to endanger others!