Get Out of Jail Free Card

I did not intend to go into pediatric nursing. I generally prefer multi-syllabic words to baby talk, hearing the word"potty" makes my skin crawl, and I don't think all babies are cute and sweet. I've met some down right spiteful ones, actually.

But then half way through nursing school I needed a job and the one that fell in my lap, straight out of the sky, was at a pediatrician's office. So I took it, tried hard as I could to be useful and grateful for a job that didn't involve animal fur, and concentrated on not dropping any babies between the exam table and the scale. The doctor is hilarious, brilliant, and kind, the receptionist is hilarious, efficient, and kind. I just try to be kind. And figure out ways to ask the jumping, clutching kids if they need to use the restroom without saying the p word. I've learned a lot --learned to love it, even. So much so that I'll keep working there a few days a week, even after I start my real job.

This past week has been terrible, though. I got kicked in the eye, caught pink eye and then somehow picked up impetigo, even though I washed my hands 45 times on Wednesday. A seven year old girl came in for bed wetting and when I listened to her heart, she wet her pants, the stream of urine trickling off the bench and dripping down on to my foot while her parents screamed at each other about the terms of their divorce, oblivious. It took three grown ups to hold down the screaming five year old boy long enough to vaccinate him and somehow I still ended up with claw marks on my neck. And now, a week after we admitted the four year old in respiratory distress to the hospital, I have the horrible hacking cough and gravelly man voice you'd expect from a 2 pack a day habit.

I was thinking about how much every muscle in my body ached, not the speed limit, when the cop stepped into traffic and motioned me over to the side of the road. 3 months ago, I dropped my drivers license in the parking lot of the hospital and the security guard sitting at the lost and found desk confessed to me that he'd put it in the pocket of his uniform pants and taken my license home instead of logging it in to the system. For two weeks, I wandered around the grounds of the hospital, searching for him, hoping he'd picked the right pants off his bedroom floor that morning. Instead of clearing time in my life to go wait in line at the DMV, I've driven around like a nervous wreck, five miles under the speed limit and practically parking at stop signs. Until I got sick and just wanted to get home.

As the cop approached my car yesterday, I started coughing so hard that I didn't even have time to think about tears (real or fake) or excuses. The officer asked for my license and registration and, in between hacking fits, I told him that I didn't have a license. Well, I have one, but not with me. Well, actually, I don't really have a license but I'm licensed. As in, once I had a license but I don't have it anymore even though I still have a valid license number. And then I started coughing really, really hard into the upper sleeve of my purple dinosaur scrubs, just like I teach the kids. The officer looked at me for a second and then I saw him look over at my stethoscope on the passenger seat. Are you a nurse ma'am? I nodded, so miserable. Well, you're in luck because I never give nurses tickets. You slow down and take care of yourself so you can take care of those kids.