Playing Doctor

For the past few days I've been holed up in the conference room at school while my student intern completes her two weeks of "intensive teaching." This means she is responsible for planning, teaching, recess duty, and all the other responsibilities that fall in her lap when left in charge of twenty-two nine and ten year-olds. I'm sure she's exhausted at the end of the day. There's a lot to do. And a lot to keep track of - assignments, preparations, notes home, picture money, lesson plans, missing work, promises made, promises forgotten. When she first came to our classroom her only responsibility was to hang out with the kids and get to know them. She would often ask me about a story she had heard from the kids and I'd be embarrassed that I hadn't yet heard it yet. I was busy keeping up with all those responsibilities.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot I spend my days sitting in front of my laptop typing away on the academic paper I need to complete to wrap up my graduate work. I'm also writing a narrative progress report for each of the kids at school. Writing, writing, writing. Generally I really enjoy it but after six to seven hours a day of it I find myself far more exhausted than had I been teaching. It's just too much sitting and not enough doing.

Today I was working really hard to finish up a particularly lengthy section of my progress reports when I had to get up, leave the room, and walk around for a bit to retain my sanity. I didn't make it far. Not more than a step out the door I was greeted by two mischievous smiles at the front desk - one belonging to the secretary and the other our principal.

"Mr. Hass, just who we wanted to see!" they said, almost in unison.

"Oh?"

Not that I'm not a likable guy but it's been my experience that anytime someone says "You're just the guy I wanted to see" it's because they want something. And usually it's not something you're going to want to do.

"We need you to be a dad," Dr. Mueller said.

"Uh, okay," I responded. I peered around the corner afraid that I was going to find Harper, Muluken, Ty, or Ainsley sitting in the small office area. They were nowhere to be found. "Where?" I asked.

"In the health room," the secretary answered.

There were a number of possibilities likely awaiting me in the health room. Fever, upset stomach, nosebleed, splinter, scraped knee.  These are the kinds of problems that find their way to the health room each and every day. The kinds of problems you expect.

"We have a kindergartner who says his penis hurts," Dr. Mueller said, breaking into an even bigger smile.

This I wasn't expecting.

"What do you want me to do about it?" I asked.

"You're a man," she assured me, as though ownership of the equipment somehow meant I understood it's workings.

I walked into the health room and this really small boy looked up at me with the saddest brown eyes.

"Hey, what seems to be the problem?" I was really hoping the situation had maybe somehow improved on its own.

"My penis hurts," he explained.  

Dang!

Where do you even begin? At home I generally respond to most ailments and injuries with the tried-and-true "Should I go out and get my saw?" Somehow this didn't seem appropriate given the delicate nature of the area.

"Well, is it a burning hurt, a sharp pain hurt, an itching hurt, or a squeezing hurt?" I asked. I'm not even sure these all real kinds of hurt. Even if they are I imagine there are many others as well. But I really wanted to sound as though I might know what the typical course of action might be for a painful penis. For that to be true I assumed I'd first have to be able to diagnose the problem.

"It hurts real bad when I sit down," he explained. The grimace on his face and the death grip on the area surrounding his penis caused me to believe he was probably telling the truth. I looked around the room and thought out our options as to how best to solve this sensitive problem.

"Alright," I said. "Let's have a look at it. Follow me into the bathroom."

Don't these just sound like the last words I might ever make as a teacher?

"What did he say to you?" the detective might ask.

"He told me he wanted to look at it and to follow him into the bathroom!" Cue the music and I'm feeling like my story might wind up an episode ripped from the headlines by Law and Order.

So the world's tiniest kindergartner and I made our way into the health room bathroom. Keeping the door open and positioning myself so that anyone could easily see me I told him to pull down his pants and show me what was hurting. Demonstrating the complete naivety of a five year old he pulled back his pants a bit, rolled back his skin, and showed me the problem area. Peering down my nose like an old lady, while keeping a tremendously safe distance, I looked it over. There it was. A tiny pink area of skin that had somehow been worn raw.

"Yep, there it is," I said.

Now, this isn't the type of area where a band-aid or a wet rag is going to cut the mustard. What do you really do for a small cut on a five year-old's penis?

"I'll tell what we're going to do," I told him. "I'm going to go get some medicine and we'll make it all better."

If he believed me he showed no signs. His look of pure gloom hadn't changed since I first asked him what was bothering him. I walked back to the office and asked someone to help me find some Neosporin. We use that stuff on just about everything at home. I really don't even know what it supposed to be used for. But it goes on smooth and doesn't burn so it seems like the perfect placebo for most any cut, scrape, or burn. The secretary dug it out of a drawer for me and helped me locate the longest Q-tip ever made. I marched back into the bathroom, asked him to show it to me again, and telescopically applied the cream.

"Don't worry," I assured him. "This won't burn a bit."

"IT BURNS!!!!" he yelled.

My credibility had been compromised. I quickly abandoned any hopes of applying the rest of the ointment and told him to pull his pants back up.

"Well that should make it better," I explained. "It'll probably take a few minutes though. I wouldn't expect it to start working until you get back to class."

This was the first smart thing I had probably said since meeting him. Should his problem not be resolved I would be buried once again behind my laptop in the conference room. Let some other unknowing male take a stab at it.

"When you get home be sure to tell your mom or dad that it's hurting, okay?" I said.

I wish now that I had followed this with "And if they ask what we did at school to help be sure to tell them I helped. My name is Mr. O'Keefe!"