Personal Narrative: My Second Day Of School Nursing

I had my second day of school nursing, and it was awesome; such a busy day. I got to assist with a semi emergency, where the child’s knee locked up and he wasn’t able to walk; he calls it “pancake knee”. I had the opportunity to recheck children that failed either or both parts of the hearing vision screening, as well as, got to be one of the main people to assess children that came in sick. Brenda allowed me to do the assessments as she knows I love the practice; practice makes perfect. Going back to the semi-emergency, where the child had “pancake knee”; I demonstrated developmentally appropriate care on this 3rd grader through this scary and painful experience. Brenda and I were called into class, which was extremely chaotic; this child
was screaming in tears and his classmates watched. We assessed the situation, while the child’s teacher called his mother, who said we needed to stretch out this child’s knee as this has happened many times before. Meanwhile, Brenda and I got this poor child, who was in tears, into a wheelchair. We brought this child back to the nurse’s office, where we did stretches. Since, I know developmentally a third grader needs encouragement and distraction; I told him how well he was doing, as well as, did techniques to distract him from the pain. For example, while doing stretches, I coached him through painful stretches by telling him to take nice slow breaths when stretching. I also did the distraction techniques of telling him to see if he can touch him toes, while stretching, in other words, see if he can stretch further than me; we also applied an ice pack to him knee. The student and I did the stretches together, because I know developmentally, he needed someone there to show and support him through this unique/painful event.