Keep your kids home

Ok, I am cranky today. I was just getting over a cold. I was finally getting better. And then I encountered a lot of people who were sick. And they sneezed on me. And coughed on me. Today, I woke up all congested again and am coming down with a new cold, different than the old cold. Ugh.

In a previous job, I worked with a variety of children, some of whom were very medically fragile. When I had to work with a child who was sick, I then wouldn't work with a couple of the medically fragile children because they were so fragile that they could have died from catching a cold. I didn't want that to happen and didn't want to be the one to spread a cold to them. Even if I followed universal precautions, there was still a risk since I can't really wear a mask doing speech therapy since many of the children need to see my mouth and tongue positions as I speak. Besides, the mask makes my speech harder to understand. Hence, I didn't wear a mask and had to breath near/on the children which meant they were exposed to my germs. So, I would have to cancel sessions with my highly medically fragile kids.

Whenever I worked with a child who was under the weather, I wondered why do parents send their kids to school when they are sick? In my head, I understand that it is very difficult to raise a child with special needs and parents would have to take off work if their child is sick. However, that is true of a typically developing child as well. Most children don't work well when they are sick (I have work with some kids who learn better when a bit sick, though).

I also wonder why the teachers would have to me see children when they are sick. Kids don't learn well when they are sick. And, just as importantly, they pass all the germs onto everyone else. It also shortchanged other students because if I think I am contagious, nobody gets therapy. So, by wanting one kid to get therapy when he/she is sick, the child infects me and then the rest of my clients miss out on therapy. Isn't it just more fair to keep your child home and cancel one session?

Ok, tirade done. On a happier note, it certainly felt like spring this morning. It was rainy but much warmer. I actually didn't have to wear a jumper (sweater) to work today. I wore my lighter winter coat but had it unzipped while I was walking. It is also light by 7:00 AM as I found out yesterday when walking Caineal and is still light at 6:00 PM. Yesterday I even noticed that the trees had buds and a couple trees had flowers on them! Yep, flowers are starting to come up. Warmer weather has to coming.