There have been so many words and emotions flying around our house these past few weeks, but I think the best word to use here is frustrated. If you’ve been following James on Facebook or have read my previous blog posts, you know that James’ one-on-one nurse at school was terminated by the district on April 17th. I don’t want to keep regurgitating the same information that I have already written, so if you want to read more about what happened, please read the Getaway to Galena, Illinois and On the Mend posts.
When the school district notified us that his nurse was let go on April 17th, we were told that they had a new nurse lined up for the following Monday (the 20th). Well, here we are two weeks later and guess what? James hasn’t been back to school yet because the district has been unable to find a nurse that wants to take care of James. To be fair, he was not in school the week of the 20th because he was sick, so it’s really only been a week that he’s been home when he could have been in school. But still.
“He’s too complicated” is what all of the prospective nurses have said, each using a slightly different variation of those words. We honestly don’t fault any of the nurses for declining to take care of James. We know he is a lot to handle. It takes a special person to care for James. We had that person, but because the teacher had some personal issue with her, she is no longer James’ nurse. And now James has been sitting at home, not getting an education, not with his classmates, and probably most importantly, not getting his therapies. He’s the one that is suffering because some beef between two adults. We don’t really know if James has the mental capacity to understand any of what’s going on, and I really hope he doesn’t. I wouldn’t know how to explain this to him.
While we absolutely adore his previous nurse, we’re slowly coming to terms that she won’t be coming back. She has already found a new job and we are happy for her. It sounds like her new employer respects her and treats her the way she (or anybody) deserves to be treated. She is no longer in an environment that we now realize was toxic. She has become more than just his nurse over the past couple of years. She has become a friend and was like a second mom to James. She will always be a part of our lives.
I can’t get into all of the details here, but we did have a rather stressful and emotional meeting with the school district this week. James needs to be in the classroom. Because of the events that have unfolded, he is being denied his education. We are not sure yet how things are going to pan out, but we will do whatever it takes to get him back into school with his peers and therapists where he belongs.
Since Stacy has been a bit of an emotional wreck these past couple of weeks, I took the day after our meeting with the district off so that she could get out of the house for some pampering time while I stayed home with James. (I really need to do that more often.) Because May is Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month, she went out and got her hair dyed purple. As the first image below says, visit www.chasa.org to donate or for more information about pediatric stroke.
Hopefully I’ll have some good news in my next post and James will be back in school. Keep your fingers crossed and say some prayers. We can use all the help we can get.
