A Conundrum

I feel like all we talk about these days is H1N1....on that note, school nurses are caught in between helping to assess children who are ill and trying to keep ourselves healthy. Just today, our supervisor asked us to keep our physical assessments to a minimum so to minimize our exposure to ill children in school. We had our H1N1 vaccines but it takes up to 10 days to build true immunity.

Anyhow, my struggle is trying to be a good resource to parents. If their child becomes ill in school and we need to send them home, the first question a parent will ask is what are the symptoms we found. Does their child have a fever? Is their child wheezing? Is their throat red? Do they have swollen glands? I cannot answer those questions if I have to stay several feet away in order to keep myself healthy.

I might have the wrong idea, but it is more important to me to provide valuable information to a parent then to save myself. Isn't that why I went into this profession to begin with?

And...if I get H1N1...a few days off would not be bad even if I do feel like crap (oops I said the "c word")! Down Nurse Nancy...Down off your soap box yet again!