The school where I work is a special needs population. There are all kinds of different needs and backgrounds and diagnosis. Some are more intense than others and some students’ needs are greater than others. Sometimes the more fragile looking student is more stable than one who appears “well”. I enjoy my job and interacting with the students and seeing their faces light up and communicating with some that I didn’t think could communicate at all. I’m also appreciating how fragile many students are on the health continuum.
Twice in a week’s time EMS has been called to my school for 2 different students. Both are fine now thank God, but to see them in a crisis was scary. The last one was for a student I was called to the classroom for. When the teacher told me to get there right away I literally ran down the hallway to get there. Thankfully my co worker followed behind me and was very supportive and helpful.
I really wasn’t sure what I signed up for when I was hired for this job. I seriously had no idea how medically fragile these students would be. Situations that in the past would surely have prevented these students from getting any kind of education or related services (speech therapy as well as physical and occupational therapies). The fragility of students varies from school to school, I recently spoke to a few of the nurses I trained with and their populations weren’t nearly as acute as mine.
I’m not complaining about my school I’m more amazed at these students than anything else. I had a conversation yesterday with a young man who has a voiced computer controlled by his eye movements. That was really sweet.
God is so good.
Menay O; mom to 4, Christian and thrift shopper on the side... 