Nurse Ratchet I am Not!

They come each day, begrudgingly, at their assigned times. The anxiety in their eyes is palpable. Their fear washes over me like the storm surge of a category 5 hurricane. It is time for the distribution of their daily meds.

I do not condone nor dispute the various reasons for which the children take the medications. My name is Nurse Ehop. I am the school nurse. It is my duty to see that each child take their prescribed dosage at their prescribed time. This does not mean I cannot make it a pleasant experience.

Medicine tastes awful. In the form a house sized pill the thought of swallowing it can also be daunting. I try to alleviate the anxiety in the children by providing a little entertainment. Today a first grade boy showed up for his meds. I had his pill in my hand.

I showed it to him and said, “Watch this pill carefully in my right hand.”

His eyes grew large in anticipation.

“Abracadabra,” I said as I invoked the tried and true magic phrase. I moved my hands in a swirl and used a little slight of hand (keep in mind it takes very little slight of hand to fool a first grader) to make the pill disappear from my right hand.

“Wow,” he said. His eyes were even larger then when I first showed him the duplex sized torpedo. “Now I don’t has to take my medicine!”

Not quite the effect I was looking for. I showed him that I made the pill disappear from my right had and reappear in my left. I was just getting ready to tell him that he needed to make the pill disappear by swallowing it. Before I could get the words out the first grader looked at me subdued.

“Nurse,” he said. “You must be a witch!”

I attributed his remark to that fact Halloween is around the corner. I of course preferred that he saw me as a magical fairy princess. Another hard learned lesson today for Nurse Ehop.