Confessions of a School Nurse

by Michael Alexander

  The thing is I’m not their friend, but it’s a bit harsh to tell them that directly. Instead, you learn to do it through your interactions with them. Some of the techniques I employ that are guaranteed to subtly get the message across that I’m a ‘nurse’ or even a ‘teacher’ – and not their mate – have included:

  • Keeping my mobile phone number secret, especially when asked.

  • Punishing equally the kids who ‘like you’ and those who don’t.

  • Never telling them what I got up to at the weekend, and never asking them, as they may say something I would have to report. They get quite a surprise when you tell them this, but it does actually help reinforce the boundaries.

  Michelle was one of the good kids. I had never had to actually use any of the above-mentioned methods with her, and I didn’t feel the need to tell her outright that we were not friends.

  ‘It’s just not good practice,’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s nothing personal, it’s just one of my rules.’

  ‘But other teachers do it. I won’t tell anyone. You’re one of the good ones. I want to stay in contact.’

  I used this moment as an opportunity to remind her about Mr Cosgrove’s incident a couple of years ago, and how the internet had nearly cost him his job …

  Poor Mr Cosgrove had been flirting with the art teacher in a rather outrageous way. Some rather descriptive messaging had been going back and forth between them for a couple of weeks, which culminated in Mr Cosgrove sending her a picture of his scrotum via his iPhone. The art teacher had loved the picture so much she had put it up on Facebook.

  ‘My balls are on the internet.’ Mr Cosgrove had been terrified of the repercussions, while the rest of the faculty had enjoyed making the most of it. The general consensus was that he wouldn’t get his balls back.

  The laughter stopped when it went viral, well, viral within the student body. The art teacher had forgotten she had accepted friend requests from a couple of students. While technically Mr Cosgrove hadn’t done anything wrong, after all it had been between two consenting adults – plus there were no actual identifiable features about whose scrotum it was – and the fact that no name had been attached (it certainly wasn’t tagged) he was able to deny that they were actually his. Management were happy to accept this claim and he wasn’t fired, although he did voluntarily leave the school at the end of the year, never to return.

  Michelle giggled at the memory while I kept a straight face. There are some teachers who let students ‘friend’ them on Facebook, and Mr Cosgrove had suffered because of it. Since the incident, as well my own personal belief it’s simply just a bad idea, I made it a rule never to ‘friend’ students on Facebook.

  It’s very touching that some students think so highly of me that they want to be my friend. ‘I tell you what. Once you graduate, and you’re officially an adult, wait six months and if you still want to be Facebook friends, then I’ll accept.’ Michelle promised she would do just that.

  Six months after graduation, Michelle ‘friended’ me. We don’t actually have any correspondence, which is good. I feel Facebook is just like the diary I kept on my travels. When you’re young and impressionable and so many things are new, often unique, and special, it’s hard to let go at the time. It’s easier to imagine yourself one day catching up and reliving the good memories you had, and refreshing that bond. But, of course, as you get older, it just doesn’t happen. To me, Facebook makes it easier to say goodbye, and while in physical terms your farewell is forever, psychologically you’ll always have that electronic link that keeps you connected

  Chapter Five

  Drugs

  Getting your buzz on

  Every year there’s usually a handful of children who test positive for drugs, usually marijuana, but there are other ways to get high besides taking pills or smoking something green.

  One Monday afternoon I received an emergency call to go to the school gym because a child was unconscious. The child was awake by the time I arrived, but over the next month another six kids passed out. ‘It’s a game,’ Rich confided in me one day and I asked him to explain. Rich was in his graduating year of school and I’d known him for five years and he had become a great source of student gossip. I know he didn’t tell me everything because he wasn’t an informer, and he never told me any names, but he did keep me in the loop about any potentially dangerous behaviour.

  ‘They make themselves pass out, or at least come close to it.’ I naturally asked why. ‘The head-rush is pretty intense.’ I asked him if he’d tried it and he admitted that he had tried it once. ‘I just wanted to see if it was actually possible. I didn’t believe you could really do it.’ He hadn’t done it again, as it had made him sick to the stomach and he’d thrown up, but according to him ‘everyone’s doing it’.

  The technique is simple:

  • Squat down against a wall

  • Take in 20–30 deep breaths rapidly

  • Take one last deep breath, hold it and stand up

  • Keep holding till your vision clears (that’s if you haven’t blacked out by then)

  • Get someone to catch you

  This craze died out after a couple of months, but not before we saw another half-dozen potential head injuries.

  Just like I can’t keep up with every new fad, or way of getting a buzz, I can’t possibly keep in the loop about every new drug that comes on the scene, particularly when so many of them aren’t even classified yet, and as a result are not illegal, but are equally (if not more) dangerous as the known stuff. The kids were once so desperate to try something new, they started swallowing nutmeg. Who would have thought that such a harmless ingredient could give such a powerful trip? There’s no way to test for nutmeg intoxication, but it was popular for at least six months. The kids would swallow whole bottles of the stuff, often with warm milk, and they’d be high for up to 24 hours. The come-down was never good, but are they ever?

  The most recent crazes, as of 2014, were the ‘bed bugs’ and ‘beeswax lip balm’ highs. I only found out about these because a couple of senior girls asked me if I’d heard of them, and if they really worked. After a bit of research I discovered that, apparently, putting a certain lip balm on your eyelids gives you a drunken feeling. The only ingredients in it are beeswax, vitamin E and peppermint. I hoped none our kids got it in their eyes as this would really hurt. I’m not convinced this will make you feel drunk, although you may get watering eyes and blurred vision.

  As for smoking crushed bed bugs, my first question was ‘who the hell finds these things out?’ and ‘where the hell are the kids going to get bed bugs from?’ As much as the kids love to moan about their rooms, we haven’t had bed bugs yet.

  It turned out the bed bug myth had begun as an April Fools’ joke that had become a viral hit and lasted a lot longer than just one day. If any of our students did manage to find some bed bugs, or any kind of bug to smoke, then more power to them. Besides, it’s not exactly something we could test for, I think. Although there are plenty of substances we can and do.

  A testing time

  I had never expected monitoring kids for drugs to be part of my role as a school nurse. I do feel conflicted at times when testing students because a positive result means instant expulsion. It’s a view Michaela and Justine share with me. We’re the ones the students are supposed to turn to for help; we’re not supposed to be involved in getting them kicked out of school.

  They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but a more accurate description would be to say that power corrupts most other people – but not me. It just makes me nervous. It would have been much easier if I had been given a random list of names, instead of being told to choose whomever I felt like.

  ‘I need six done today,’ Mr Driscoll had explained. ‘We need to be seen to be making an effort.’ He then stressed that the purpose of drug testing is not to catch anyone out; instead he wants to discourage anyone from taking them in the first place. Choosing students at random is not
as easy as it sounds, especially when you must have a mix of boys and girls, new and returning, as well as someone who has been tested before because ‘They have to see that it’s random, and just because they’ve been tested once, doesn’t mean they won’t be tested again.’

  These non-random criteria neatly ruled out the only way I knew of picking someone at random, which was to close my eyes and point at a name on a list. There was no way it could be random, because I now had to pick and choose whom to test, which sort of defeats the purpose. It also doesn’t help that names and faces began to surface in my mind, but I had a job to do and, thankfully, I came up with a solution. I chose Mr Wright’s class because he had one of the biggest classes on campus, with about twenty-five students, and so was most likely to meet the needed criteria.

  ‘I need some volunteers,’ I said as I stood in the doorway and Mr Wright kindly volunteered them all, but no one offered. Instead they looked at me suspiciously. I would have to pick. Should I choose someone like Chris, simply because he fits a certain profile? He’s never tested positive, but was the stereotypical surfer dude from California with the long blonde hair, skateboard and chin fluff. He was a good kid, with good grades whose family I had come to know over the years as I’d looked after his older sister and brother. I didn’t want to choose him because I was worried he might fail, but now I couldn’t discard him completely because that was not the random thing to do.

  I chose Chen because he was Asian and looked the academic type, surely not a smoker. Next were the two Canadians, Laura and Rob, although I was a bit nervous about choosing Rob because all the Canadian male friends I had known over the years were into smoking pot. Then came two unreadable Russians, one male and one female and both new. That left one student to choose who had been tested before, which meant I reluctantly picked Chris.

  ‘Dude, that’s not fair,’ Chris moaned. He insisted he wasn’t worried, but angry because he was being singled out for looking like a stoner. ‘It’s the principle,’ he said, and perhaps he was right.

  ‘Sorry mate, got no choice,’ I said as I explained I simply needed someone who had been tested before, and he was the only one in the class I had randomly selected. They sat in the health centre sipping water, waiting for the urge to pee. Chris asked for a second glass because he couldn’t go, while the two Russians went first and were given the all-clear. Chen went next, followed by the two Canadian students, but Chris still couldn’t pee.

  The longest I normally have to wait is about fifteen minutes, but Chris still hadn’t been after twenty minutes. ‘It’s not my fault, I went just before you came and got me.’ I hoped this was true and reminded him that the kidneys produce 1ml of urine a minute.

  ‘I’m not dumb enough to do pot here,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m over that sort of shit. I just don’t need a piss.’ I ignored the bad language and instead asked him what he meant by being ‘over that sort of shit’.

  ‘If I was back in California, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Everyone’s tried it. I get offered pot all the time at school, but I don’t do it anymore. I did it a bit in ninth and tenth grade, but I’m over it. If I want to get high, I’ll wait till I get back home. But I won’t, because like I said, I don’t do that shit. And besides, you really think I’m stupid enough to waste 100,000 euros getting kicked out of school? My dad would kill me.’

  Another twenty minutes passed before he was ready to pee. ‘Enjoy,’ he said as he passed me his sample before heading back to class. I stopped him at the door to ask if he wanted to see the test, as every student, even the innocent ones, is eager to see the physical result. He shrugged his shoulders and asked ‘why’ before heading out the door.

  His test was clear.

  You shouldn’t judge anyone by the way they look, but it’s only natural – we all do it to some degree or another. However, I’ve been caught out, and had the most innocent looking faces test positive for the most surprising of drugs.

  There was the Saudi royal who tested positive for heroin, then the bookish, serious looking Chinese sisters who not only had great grades, but the strongest positive result for cocaine I’ve ever seen. There was also the quiet first timer who had the misfortune to be caught in the act. And then there’s Jimmy …

  Jimmy

  Jimmy wasn’t exactly ‘hanging out’ in the health centre. He had been referred to me because other students, as well as staff, had heard him tell others how much he smoked. Several teachers described him as sounding proud of it.

  Jimmy had transferred to our school from a public school in California and it was his first time in Europe, but not his first time away from home. ‘I can’t believe you can grow your own pot, dude, it’s awesome,’ he said by way of greeting, referring to the lax laws in this part of Europe. I told him that it’s not appropriate to talk about such habits out loud because ‘it’s not cool’ but he didn’t get the hint.

  ‘Dude, everyone smokes it. My little brother even smokes it.’

  It’s hard to figure out the number of students that smoke pot, but every year there are at least two or three that get expelled for taking drugs. Unlike most others his age, Jimmy didn’t try hiding the fact that he smoked, and even explained that his parents were worried about his habit. At eighteen years of age, he had been smoking for the last four years, and his parents wanted him as far away as possible from the drug problems they had there. So they sent him to an isolated school high up in the Alps.

  Jimmy’s rationale for using pot was the usual: it’s harmless, everyone does it, and it’s medicinal. ‘As soon as I get back to L.A., I’m getting my pot licence. I ain’t never gonna stop.’

  With marijuana so entrenched in his way of thinking, I couldn’t see Jimmy lasting long at our school. ‘You do realise that we do drug testing here?’ I explained, but he just shrugged his shoulders: ‘What will be, man. I’ll try and be good, but I can’t make any promises.’

  ‘Your parents spent a lot of money to send you here. Are you just going to throw that money away?’ I told him, but it fell on deaf ears. Jimmy wasn’t the slightest bit put out. ‘That’s just a drop in the ocean. My parents wouldn’t even notice.’ His family may not notice the money (rumour had it his family had recently bought an island) but his habit was affecting his life as he was failing high school and had been uprooted from his friends and sent to live in a foreign speaking country, but he couldn’t see this, or chose to ignore it.

  ‘It’s probably not a good idea to tell everyone about your habit, you should learn to be discreet. You’re going to run out of schools to take you.’

  Jimmy explained that he had been kicked out of three previous schools. The first had been a private day school.

  ‘And this doesn’t bother you?’ He shrugged his shoulders and said it wasn’t his fault because if his mother hadn’t found the pot he’d hidden in an old shoe in his wardrobe then he would have been fine.

  ‘What sort of mum looks in such places?’ he said, sounding almost nostalgic. He laughed when I told him that he wasn’t the first to think that old shoes were great hiding places, and that mothers are great at cleaning in the most obscure corners of their child’s bedroom.

  After being withdrawn from his first school, he’d been sent to a private boarding school in the States. He hadn’t fared any better, his grades again dropped, and he’d failed a random drug test.

  Jimmy’s parents had become tired of throwing away money on expensive institutions and desperate to get their child on the right track, but nothing seemed to work. They then tried the public school system where it was tough, and surely he’d learn to appreciate just how privileged he was, and see the error of his ways. But public school was no different. ‘It was easy to fit in,’ he said, because ‘it’s the easiest place in the world to get some gear’.

  When everyone became aware that nothing had changed, his mother had told me via email that we were his last chance. He had to clean his act up, or they would be taking drastic action. I replied, telling her that I fel
t her son needed more than we could offer, but she still wanted to give our school a try.

  ‘Why should I hide who I am? It’s part of me. If people don’t like it, that’s their problem.’ Jimmy sounded insulted at my suggestion he should be discreet.

  ‘Marijuana is who you are? Great to see you aiming so high in life.’ I was getting annoyed at his apathetic attitude to everything, although this was no surprise. Teenagers can be the most stubborn people in the world at the best of times, let alone with the brain-numbing effects of drugs. Jimmy didn’t react to my insult, probably because it went way over his head.

  ‘Your mum said this is your last chance.’ She had repeated this phrase often, although never explained what she exactly meant. ‘Do you even give a damn?’

  Jimmy fired up. ‘You don’t know me, of course I give a damn.’

  ‘Then will you at least make an effort? A genuine attempt to stay in school, and follow the rules? For your family’s sake.’

  Something flashed in Jimmy’s eyes at the mention of his parents. And I realised, he wasn’t a bad guy, just a naïve kid. After a bit more cajoling, Jimmy left my office promising to ‘see what he could do’. He almost sounded sincere. But, ultimately, he needed more help than me or the school could provide. Four months later Jimmy’s drug test came back positive for marijuana and he was asked to leave the school.

  Many schools take on children who need more than they can offer, especially private schools as they have a pretty big financial incentive to make it work. The powers that be often genuinely believe they can provide the structure and support for children, but it’s not always the case. I shouldn’t be so cynical, ‘everyone needs a second chance, a blank slate,’ as Mr Driscoll often says.

  Mr Driscoll is partially right as I’ve seen students with bad attitudes come good in the end, but it’s more to do with luck and chance as anything else, regardless of how much effort we put in.