I returned to the Valley of the Sun in 2002 to accept a job as a high school nurse in Phoenix in an “inner city school.” I, having been an Air Force nurse, thought, “1700 kids on a tough campus, no big deal. I can handle this. We train for anything.” Au contraire, mon frère.
I arrived for my first day on the same day the kids did. I was completely ignorant to all things school nursing, but blissfully so. I was too naïve to realize the filing system left by my predecessor was no system at all. The annual reports due to the state – huh, I didn’t know there were any. The mandatory immunization tracking for both students and faculty – was that really a thing? And the faculty in-services (You think the military and private companies have mandatory training, wait until you sit through yet another school nurse led “Bloodborne pathogens: don’t get one” in-service, or the de rigeuer “Epi-pens in the classroom: they’re your friend” lecture complete with demonstration.), didn’t know I was supposed to schedule those eye-glazing presentations until the first semester was almost over, and believe you me, NO faculty member was in a hurry to alert me. All of that filing, reporting, tracking, in-servicing was supposed to fit somewhere in between the 70-80 students I was seeing in my office a day.
Let’s put that into perspective. Most physicians see 4 patients an hour spread over 7-8 hours a day, so a maximum of 32. Yeah, I was more than double that on a great day. So, by mid-semester, the coffee maker down the hall and the Pepsi man who filled my 3-a day habit of Diet Pepsi (because drinking coffee all day just isn’t attractive. A switch to soda sometime around noon is required to remain seemly.) were my two best friends. Caffeine and adrenaline were all that kept me going. Seriously, if I’d sat down for a mere second, I think I might have slipped into a voluntary coma.
Did I like my job? Yes. And no. Let me explain. I am, as you know a Southern girl – sorority, Junior League, makeup, high heels, and all. I am, also as you know, not quite five feet tall. I am blonde (when I remember to go to the salon at regular intervals), green eyed, and occasionally timid. In other words, I am in no way threatening. Some of the tougher students tried to use this to their advantage. Those were not so fun days – amusing, but not fun.
Oddly enough, the physical description fits my sister rather well, too, but she can be quite terrifying. I’m told it’s all in demeanor. I come across like I want to take care of you, and she comes across like she wants to eat you for lunch. Probably a reasonable description. After all I am a nurse by education and training, and she has chosen a profession that is not in the least nurturing. Sometimes I wish I had more of her in me, but then I remember that God gave me the heart He did on purpose, and I am content with who I am and am both amused and awed by who she is. (Don’t tell her that.)
Back to the job. Picture the waiting room of any school nurse office ever built in the 1960s. A small lobby with a door opening directly off the outside of the school, in this case the very first door anyone came to when entering school grounds. In my lobby a line of cold, plastic molded chairs hugged the walls while above them hung inspirational, motivational posters as well as posters about diseases and health issues common in teens, but absolutely NO SEXUAL TOPICS at all because I, as the school nurse, was not allowed to address sex with the students. (Seriously????? Who else were they talking to, because I assure you at least twice a day one of them wanted to talk about it. I will not tell you that I closed my office door to have private conversations about the hazards physically and emotionally of having sex at an age at which they may not fully comprehend the impact it could have on their lives. I also will not tell you that every time a girl came asking for a pregnancy test, I wrote her an off-campus pass to go to Walgreens to buy herself a $3 test, then come back and tell me the results. I will not tell you that every time, if it came back negative, I again closed that door and had an excruciatingly – for her -long talk about having sex with a boy who didn’t respect her enough to worry about her future and use a condom. Nope, I told you none of that.)
So, in that very waiting room, there is a pony wall – half drywall – that the upper half had been covered in glass to separate my little “office” from the waiting room. Now, my office wasn’t particularly private; hello, wall of glass, but it was my office. I was used to having my own office, and having a space in which to set my coffee cup/Diet Pepsi can down so that I wouldn’t loose them was always a bonus. But that first day of my job, that very first, ignorant day, I almost didn’t make it to day two.
You already know the story about my first day and the boy with the long greasy hair throwing open the door to my office just as the first bell rang, looking me up and down, then asking if the glass between my office and the lobby was bullet-proof. How I knew in all likelihood it wasn’t, but that my survival instinct kicked in, and I lied, oh, did I lie, “Yes, yes it is.” He nodded, turned, and the door slammed shut behind him. I scurried to that same door locked it, sank into a chair and promptly burst into tears, sure that God and I had made a mistake. There was no way I was supposed to be in this school, no way I could work with kids who asked at 7:50 in the morning if glass was bullet-proof. (Not sure why the time matters other than that I hadn’t finished my first cup of coffee, and without it, I make sense about ½ the time. Let’s chalk it up to that.)
When I could stand up without falling off my high heels, I unlocked the doors, and the proverbial floodgates had opened. I didn’t have another second to think about that boy, but by the end of the day, exhausted and still with so much to do, he came to mind. I started wondering about his story. What would prompt that question? What did he see at home? What did he do when he wasn’t at school? (I’d find out over the next few years, as he’d frequent my office during lunch just to talk.)
By the end of that first week, I was pretty sure I’d taken another wrong turn on my life journey. I couldn’t relate at all to these kids, at least the ones who came to see me. The ones who were the “good kids” never, ever visited me. If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense. The “good kids” stayed in class unless they were absolutely dying, and then they’d just use their cell phones to call their parents to come get them. My “frequent flyers” generally had no one; so, I became their someone, but those first few days I just didn’t get that.
What changed my mind? It was long after school had ended on Friday that first week; I was still there because of the filing mess. I was alone on campus except for my boss, and, as it turned out, a single student. As I shut off the lights and locked my office door behind me, I spotted C, a freshman, sitting on the ground directly in front of my door.
“C, what are you still doing here?” I asked somewhat dismayed. Remember, inner city school almost completely empty. Not safe.
She shrugged in response, started playing with those “jelly” bracelets that ran all the way up to her elbows then connecting with a black hoodie.
“Did you need something?”
She shrugged again, but this time she looked away, and I knew she did need something – me, but there was no way she was going to say that. By now it was 5:00 in the afternoon, and it had been a very, very long day, but, hey, I had no social life. So, I could be there until 10:00, and it would still be fine. I unlocked my door again, nodded at her indicating she should come into the office. I flicked the lights on, led her back to the exam room.
“Hop up on the table,” I told her as I leaned against a counter.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I suggested gently.
She looked at me through lowered eyelashes. I got that look a lot from people who were trying to decide whether or not they could trust me. I noticed that she was pulling on those bracelets again.
“You’re wearing a lot of bracelets. They mean anything?” I asked in that same quiet, calm voice.
At this her eyes filled. I wasn’t shocked at the tears, but the next thing she did absolutely took me by surprise. Slowly she began to remove the bracelets, and when she had stripped every last one, she turned her arms over for me to see. Covering both inner arms were scars and scabs running the width of her arms and stretching from wrist to elbow. “No one else knows. I’m afraid to tell. Please, can you help me? I use a safety pin to – to do this. I have to, or I don’t feel anything. I’m so damn numb. Why am I numb? Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to hurt myself to feel anything?” Her tears were streaming unchecked, and she was staring into my face begging for real answers to her desperate questions.
There were all sorts of clinical answers I could have given this beautiful 15-year old girl about the reasons for cutting. But none of those answers were going to help her at 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. None of those answers were going to help me help her. Instead, I wanted to cry with her because the etiology and pathology of cutting isn’t easy or pretty. However, I will tell you that while her problem wasn’t solved that night, it was solved, and that the last time I saw C, she wore no bracelets, no long sleeves, and she positively shimmered with happiness. My heart, I’m positive, sparkled for her.
For my part, and my purpose in sharing this with you, is that Friday evening, God used C to show me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, because while I was struggling to connect, those kids weren’t. All they wanted, all they needed, was someone who was willing and able to do the one thing He gives us in abundance not to hoard but to give away – Love. As long as I held onto that, the rest of it – filing, reporting, tracking, in-servicing, that would all fall into place.
Love, it’s as amazingly simple as that.
The Unexpected Life 