Camp Nurse

by Tilda Shalof

  “No, no, no!” he shouted, digging his toes in between the cracks of the wooden boards of the dock as she pulled at him and he pushed back at her. Splash! Wayne was in the water, within Cargo’s tight grip. She tried to get him to ride on her back like a dolphin but he remained absolutely rigid and terrified.

  Mission accomplished, but whose mission and what accomplishment? It made me especially grateful that Max and Harry weren’t afraid of the water. I hadn’t talked with them much, but from what I could tell, they were enjoying camp. Harry tended to avoid me and slunk away, the hood on his sweatshirt suddenly up, when he saw me coming. He never liked to be singled out for attention. At first, Max bounced over every morning for a hug or to share his opinion of the meal, but his counsellors quickly came to retrieve him. They told me that seeing Max with his mother made the other kids miss theirs. I saw their point, but I also think they were having a hard time with Max and his tendency to wander off, so were trying to keep him close.

  Evening pill call at the mc was much more relaxed than the mad rush at breakfast and lunch, because it was the end of a long and busy day and there were fewer pills. Mostly it was the time when the kids came for their evening sedation or antidepressants. A few teenaged girls shyly and discreetly came to receive their birth control pills (for medical reasons other than birth control, they made a point of telling me). Just before bedtime, campers came for their pills to prevent bedwetting. (The pills mostly worked, but not always, so the counsellors were expected to check the beds each morning and change the sheets if necessary while the kids were at breakfast, so as to avoid embarrassment.) I had to admire the sheer aplomb of the ten-year-old boy who told me, “Sure I wet the bed. Is there something wrong with that?”

  Evening also seemed to be the time that homesickness came out. Wendy made rounds to all of the younger cabins, tucking the kids in and reading them stories. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the youngest kids at camp who were the most homesick, it was the eleven-and twelve-year-olds, and frequently the teenagers. Most just needed a hug or a distraction to get them through a difficult moment, but a few kids had a bad case of it.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let them call home,” Kitch had instructed me. “It always makes things worse.”

  Alexa Rose, the girl I’d met in the parking lot along with her mother, had been coming to us every bedtime in her pyjamas and furry Ugg boots, each evening more miserable than the last. She was an eleven-year-old Wildflower, a Lupin (not to mention Scorpio). Every evening I gave her a few drops of Rescue Remedy that promised on the label “to comfort and reassure” and sat with her while she sobbed.

  “Can I call home?” she asked.

  “It’s not a good idea.”

  “My mother said I could call if I wanted.”

  “It’s a camp policy. We don’t let campers call home.”

  Phone calls home were rarely allowed and only with Coach Carson’s agreement.

  “But that’s for everyone else. My mother said I could call home if I wanted to and if I got really homesick, she said she’d come get me.”

  “Does your brother know how unhappy you are?”

  “He doesn’t know I exist. I haven’t even seen him.” She tugged at her furry boots. “He’s having an amazing time, so he doesn’t understand me.”

  “Aren’t you hot in those boots?” I asked, trying to distract her.

  She stared back at me like I was an idiot: to her, they were the exact right temperature: cool. I looked at her forlorn face and knew exactly how she felt. For a moment, I was taken back to when I was her age and felt homesick, right in my own home. My mother was sick and depressed and my father preoccupied with her care. I was always angling to be a guest in other peoples’ homes. I softened my approach. “This is only the third day of camp. Maybe give it a few more days?” I wheedled.

  “Can’t I just call them? If I just speak to them, I’ll feel better.”

  “No, but you could write to your parents and tell them how you feel,” I suggested.

  “I feel terrible!”

  “Then mention the things you do like about camp.”

  “But I don’t like anything!”

  “I’m sure you could think of something you like,” I said, knowing I was not following Kitch’s advice, which was to redirect children who were homesick rather than talk with them about it. My strategy was to try to get her to focus on the positives. It wasn’t working. In between sobs, she managed to tell me all the things that were troubling her. “I’m the new girl and I don’t know anyone except this one girl I know from school. We used to be BFFS, but we’re so not any more. Now, I don’t have a best friend at camp and everyone else does, except me. Anyway, she’s jealous of me because of my stuff. She touches everything. She used my shampoo and said it was by mistake, but I mean, my nanny labelled everything, so she had to have seen my name. She knew it wasn’t hers.”

  Perusing Alexa Rose’s chart, I noted that she disliked dogs and that got me thinking. I could understand being afraid of lightning storms, or even monsters under the bed, but dogs? If forcing children to swim was a way to get over fear of the water, could playing with a friendly dog give her the courage to conquer that fear? Perhaps a dog could even help Alexa Rose with her homesickness? I had seen first-hand the comfort animals could bring. I knew a wheaten terrier who took his work as a therapy pet seriously. He helped people cope with the grief of losing a loved one. I had been impressed by the therapeutic influence of Merlin, a miniature collie who paid regular visits to residents of a nursing home. And I would never forget a dying woman in our ICU and her nurse who granted her patient’s last wish to see her horse. She had wheeled her patient down to the back of the hospital, iv poles on one side of the stretcher, oxygen tank on the other. The horse was led down the ramp of the unloading docks straight to where the patient lay. He looked at her, whinnied, and stamped his hoof, as if in recognition. I don’t think the patient had the energy to cry, but those of us gathered there to witness the moment did.

  I looked at Alexa Rose’s miserable face. “What about a dog to cuddle?”

  “I hate dogs,” Alexa Rose said. “They have rabies.”

  She didn’t like any animals, she said, not even ones in the zoo. I wondered how she was going to cope at the camp’s Eco Zone with its rabbits and guinea pigs, as well as the Carsons’ poodle, Skippy. “Maybe a dog could help you with your homesickness? What if I bring Skippy on a leash? You can see how gentle she is.”

  “No way! That’s so not happening.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked away. She seemed ready to return with her counsellor who’d been waiting patiently. At least I’d managed to distract her. It’s hard enough to overcome a fear you want to overcome, much less one that you don’t.

  Early each morning, Caitlin got up, did yoga stretches, and at seven o’clock knocked on my door. “Wakey, wakey, girlfriend. Let’s go!” she’d say and would drag me out of bed for a brisk morning walk on a trail through the woods. Right before setting out, she’d apply a layer of fruity lip gloss. “I’m addicted to this stuff,” she’d say, slipping the tube into her vest pocket for another fix along the way. Then, she clipped the walkie-talkie we shared to the back of her jogging pants and off we went. With her ponytail pulled through her baseball cap, swinging back and forth with the pumping of her muscular legs, Caitlin set a brisk pace and I did my best to keep up.

  She had grown up in a small Ontario farming town and was used to the beauty of nature, so it didn’t dazzle her as it did me. She was impatient when I’d stop to ooh and aah over various sights. One morning, a deer stepped out of the forest on the side of the road and paused in front of us. I paused, too, but Caitlin bypassed it without a break in her stride. “Keep up the pace,” she called back over her shoulder.

  Feeling so alive and healthy on those walks, I experienced walking for the sake of being outdoors, breathing the fresh morning air, and moving vigorously. In the woods, I allowed myself to take in the sights around me, especially
the exotic (to me) patches of brilliant yellow, purple, and white flowers. (Caitlin pointed out that they were weeds – buttercup, loosestrife, and Queen Anne’s Lace – but I still thought they were pretty.)

  Caitlin was interested in hearing about my work in the ICU but was taken aback when I told her how long I’d been at the same job.

  “Twenty years?” She looked at me with pity. “Isn’t it time to move on? Haven’t you had enough of the bedside?”

  No, I explained, I loved taking care of patients, found my work challenging and fascinating, and felt that I still had a lot more to learn. She said she might be interested in critical care one day, once she got more experience under her belt, but it sounded stressful and depressing. “And what’s with the twelve-hour night shifts and working weekends?” she asked, shaking her head. “I don’t think so, I want to have a life.”

  But she must have been intrigued by my stories of the ICU because she kept asking me for more. For the first time, I found it strange to talk about that work I loved so much with all of the pain, suffering, and sadness it entailed, out there in that beautiful, natural setting and with the new lightheartedness I was feeling. Should I tell her about the patient I’d cared for on my last shift, a young man who had cystic fibrosis and was awaiting a lung transplant? He struggled with every breath and his family stayed at his side all day and night, waiting for news that would save his life. I had to leave at the end of my shift without ever finding out whether he’d received a new pair of lungs or not. Caitlin shuddered and seemed upset when I told her about such sad things and so I veered onto lighter topics. My two nursing worlds never felt so far apart.

  That first week went smoothly. As far as I could tell – from a distance – my kids were content. I was enjoying myself too, finding lots of time to get out and participate in activities around camp. I’d spoken on the phone with Ivan a few times and although he didn’t say it, I had the distinct feeling he was missing me, which wasn’t such a bad thing.

  Toward the end of the first week, after lunch, Coach Carson announced it was letter-writing day. “Tell your parents about the fun you’re having, your new friends, and how delicious the grilled cheese sandwiches are,” he prompted them.

  At first they balked, then he told them that a letter home was their meal ticket for dinner. They found letter writing and the idea of snail mail amusing.

  “Wow! Stamps!” many exclaimed. “Cool.”

  “Letters take, like, forever,” one kid grumbled, “three or four days or something. My news will be old by the time they get it.”

  “It’s weird not to be able to text my parents,” one kid told me, “but I don’t miss messaging my friends ’cause I’m here with them 24/7.”

  Understandably, they were used to instant contact whenever the whim hit. Did they even know how to write by hand? Would they pepper their letters with electronic language like LOL for “laugh out loud,” or “Camp is kewl! Camp is GR 8!”*

  Coach Carson told me that the lack of Internet access was problematic for parents who wanted contact with their kids. He was looking into setting it up at camp for the following summer, but in the meantime, all they had was old-fashioned pen and paper. I was curious to see how the kids would manage.

  That night, at dinnertime, Coach Carson looked worried.

  “Whaddup?” I asked, trying out the new lingo I was learning.

  “The kids’ letters have gone home.”

  “And your point is?”

  “Brace yourself.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll see,” he said grimly.

  A few days later, I understood the reason for Coach Carson’s ominous tone. The campers’ letters had finally made their way home. Overnight the camp telephone answering machine and e-mail box filled up with calls and urgent messages from parents.

  * There are many bad “b” words, but there’s only one I can’t bear and have banned from our household, and that is “bored.”

  * Synthetic adrenalin, a powerful emergency drug to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm and create a blood pressure.

  * I’d like to remind younger readers that my generation had its share of codes too. There was 2ysur, 2ysub, I CUR 2Ys4ME and SWAK for “Sealed With a Kiss” and DDDD for “Deliver De-letter De-Sooner De-Better,” so don’t feel sorry for us!

  6

  ARTS AND CRAFTS NURSE

  A boy ran up to me. “Hey, Nurse! Did ya hear? All the toilets have been stolen!”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, the police are investigating but they have nothing to go on. Get it?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Hey, Nurse,” he said, now looking serious. “Did you know your wenis is showing?”

  “My what?”

  “Your wenis!”

  How hilarious. This joke – which I didn’t get – was on me.

  “You got punk’d, girlfriend!” squealed Caitlin when I told her. Kitch had heard that one before. “Wenis is the medical term for the flabby skin on the elbow,” he said. In the mc waiting room I stood in front of the mirror, fingering my wenis. Flabby, was it? I felt young at heart but they didn’t see my heart, only my age. Mature, maternal Nurse Mom next to young, youthful Nurse Caitlin was not a pretty picture. What I needed was not street, but camp, cred. So, I told Caitlin it was time to kick up our morning hike a few notches. I was ready to shift into high gear! I joined an afternoon hip hop class and in no time, was poppin’, lockin’, and slidin’ along with the rest of them. “Work it, girl!” The dance instructor offered encouragement as I did my best to ignore the few “what’s she doing here?” looks. I’ll show them who’s cool!

  By the end of the first week of camp I knew most of the campers by name and the meds they were on. A few kids stumped me, such as the identical twin brothers, Michael and Martin, each on different meds. They got annoyed when I kept asking who was who until one day I noticed that one of them, Michael, had a mole. Some kids stood grinning at me, making me guess their names. Others gave me fake names or only their first names. I guess I could have always just shouted out Michael ChristopherMatthewJoshuaNicholasAndrewDanielBradley or AshleyJessicaSarahBrittanyEmilySamanthaAmandaStephanie Nicole and someone would have come forward for something! The other problem was they often dragged their heels, coming late for their meds, or not showing up at all. Then I had to go after them.

  “Here comes da nurse, here comes da nurse!” a CIT called out when he saw me approach with my pill basket. “Run, kids! Hide from the nurse!”

  I managed to nab one camper, then I trapped another fugitive at the tennis court.

  “They’re just vitamins,” she told me scornfully. “I don’t really need them.”

  “Yes, but your parents want you to have them.”

  I hunted down one boy in his cabin who had a pretty good comeback. “Sorry!” He slapped his forehead. “I was stuck in traffic all morning.”

  “Here comes my connection,” I heard one kid tell his friend. “She’s my drug dealer. The pill pusher.”

  “You’re not making it easy for me,” I scolded another kid.

  “That’s why they pay you the big bucks,” he quipped. “Ka-ching! Ka-ching!”

  Because of these delays, the after-breakfast clinic got pushed back later and later. Kitch was understanding because he knew how many meds we had to give out. He’d calculated that roughly a third of the entire camp was on meds of one kind or another. “That’s fairly typical, these days,” he told me on an especially busy morning.

  “It’s always such a mad rush,” I complained. “Are all these pills necessary?”

  “Many of the kids with add wouldn’t be able to come to camp at all without them.” He disagreed with parents who put their kids on a “drug holiday” because in his experience, kids were happier staying on their meds. “Camp is a busy, structured place and they cope better if they can follow directions, wait their turn, and organize their belongings, things they can’t do if they’re not on their meds.
Their behaviour is better and they get along with their cabin mates and therefore enjoy themselves more.”

  It was time to get to work. While Kitch sat in his office perusing medical journals, Caitlin and I went out to the crowded waiting room to assess the kids’ problems and decide in what order they would be seen. At camp, triage wasn’t strictly a matter of the severity of their medical problems. There were other factors to consider. The loudness of the whining, persuasiveness of pleading, and forcefulness of pestering didn’t get anywhere with me – nor their “pedigree” of influential or wealthy parents – but it did influence Kitch and Caitlin, who tended to treat the high-maintenance or high-profile ones first. In my own triage system, when all medical issues were equal, campers came before counsellors and politeness was the only effective grease. I complimented one boy on his exceptionally good manners.

  “Don’t think I behave this well at home,” he cautioned me.

  For some children, it was a badge of honour how many times they frequented the mc, and for others it was more of an achievement to avoid coming altogether. I often wondered what prompted one child to rush for attention and treatment for a single mosquito bite and another to tough it out, even when covered in bug bites. Usually, I had little time to ponder such questions. Sometimes, when the waiting room was full, I asked them to write down the reason they came. It kept them momentarily occupied, but their notes weren’t usually all that helpful:

  Can something be done about my freckles?

  Feeling crappy!

  Ate evil hamburger last night. Might have Mad Cow Disease.

  Eye?

  Bug bite. Check it out – there’s a planet on my neck!

  Knee falling off [accompanied by sketch of knee, labelled with “ouch” and arrow].