Gross and Nasty Stuff

Today, there was not any school for students, but I had to attend a workshop all day. These are usually fairly boring, but we get paid for them and they always supply breakfast and lunch, so I go. I spent the first part of my morning being certified in First Aid. These workshops always freak me out because one of two things will happen. One: I assume I have all the symptoms of whatever really awful thing the nurse is explaining or at the very least, will have them soon. Two: I get lightheaded due to the talk of blood, lost appendages, eyeballs popping out, etc.

The first issue happened right when we began our session. The nurse was showing us what to do if a student comes to school with a tick. The nurse even had three different dead ticks tapped to a board so that we could see them up close. Well, I already know what to do. Stay as far away from that student as possible and send him/her down to the nurse. That was easy. **Side Note: For those of you who don't know, I have an extreme phobia of ticks. Ironically, I have never had one, but if I ever got one, there would be a lot of screaming and crying involved.** So, at this point, I already have chills and am making involuntary noises such as, "blech," "eww," "yuck," etc. But then she started talking about these poisonous spiders that have flesh-eating venom. Yeah, that's right. FLESH. EATING. VENOM. They are called the Brown Recluse Spider and apparently they generally live in southern regions, but some like to brave the cold Minnesota weather. The nurse was recalling all these stories (that happened in Minnesota . . . yikes!) she had knew of people getting bitten and then the flesh decomposing off their victims bodies where the bite happened. By the time we took our first break, I was already mentally constructing a plastic bubble to live in because between the Lyme's disease-carrying ticks and the flesh-eating spiders, I don't have a chance at survival.

Then we came back from the break and talked about what to do if someone has a seizure, a bloody nose, runs into a forklift and has internal bleeding (this was a true scenario discussed, which I found handy due to the exorbitant amount of forklifts we have patrolling the hallways at Stevenson Elementary School), cuts off a finger, loses a tooth, etc. There was even a really cheesy video to go along with it, complete with a thinner and more tenor version of James Early Jones as our host.. The acting was terrible yet entertaining at the same time, but they would show what looked like real blood. I had to look away from the television so many times. I already know I am not good with this sort of thing. One time a student threw up in the lunchroom. I couldn't even ask if he was okay because every time I opened my mouth, my throat would close up and I would gag. A friend, who knew I was not going to be very helpful, told me not to worry and that she would handle it. Bless her because otherwise our janitor would have had an even bigger mess on his hands. My queasy stomach is the same reason why I can't watch Ultimate Fighting (plus, I think it is barbaric) or any kind of war movies. I went to see Gladiator when it was in theaters. I had to leave at one point to go get a drink of water because I was getting so grossed out. Good thing I work in schools with young people who like to spew things out all the time, right? I mean, I have seen everything from puke, pee, poop, snot, and blood from my students, and it seems like they always want to touch me during these times. Actually, Little Jimmy, this is a great teachable moment about 'personal space.' Use your words, not your hands . . . on my snow-white pea coat.

Anywho, regardless of my gag reflex, I passed the course and completed pediatric and adult First Aid, asthma care and learned all about the First Aid topics (i.e. ticks, spiders, animal bites, fevers, etc.) Whoo-hoo!! These sessions like I had today make me worry about when we have children of our own and they barf and bleed all over our house and cars. At least at school, I can call for help and I know the janitor is going to clean up the mess. Who is going to clean it at my house? Troy isn't good with that stuff either. We can only call our moms so many times before they realize that we aren't calling them to "help" us, we are calling them to "clean without us." My mom said that it is different when it is your own kids. I don't know about that. I hope she's right. I might need to get Merry Maids on my speed dial . . . you know, just in case.