Dirty Jobs

                                                                                                                                    
It's true, Discovery Channels Mike Rowe has seen and participated in the most dirtiest jobs known to man, he's a brave soul, there is no doubt.

I have to wonder though, does Mr. Mike have it in him to spend a day in a Special Education Preschool room with some three to four year old delayed children in all their varieties, that perhaps are not potty trained, may come with gastric feeding tubes and during the cold and flu season, can sport a green snotty nose followed by uncovered coughs?

Only the bold and brave enter a room such as this... or... the truly insane, I have the believe I fall into the truly insane category but for our daring Mike, who has just about seen and done it all, I wonder what he would think.

This year we have four children that have the G- tube and luckily, with the exception of one, we don't have to feed them.

Our one little exception needs to be fed at 1:00 which works well with our snack schedule for the other children. We gather around the tables and while the children are eating, our little guy with the tube is playing and touching the food while his formula is pumping away into his stomach. It's not bad really, we've all been trained on how to insert the tube and work the pump.

It's when he needs to burp. See this little fella doesn't have the ability to burp normally, instead belching like the rest of us, he starts hacking and coughing and making gurgling sounds. When this happens we have to lay him on his back and insert a tube into his feeding tube. Immediately the air is released making a burping sound and our little man feels instantly better and ready to resume playing.

Usually this task falls on our nurse specialist turned paraprofessional. Since she was a nurse back in the day we let her take care of all the nursing that comes with our job, except the time she was gone of course, then the task was left to me and another teacher.

After the children were finished with snack and our little man's formula was emptied into his stomach we started playing, happily playing..... until we heard it. Hacking, coughing and gagging sounds were coming from our little guy.

 We put our trained skills into action and began working like a well oiled surgical team. One of the teachers picked him up and laid him down on a bean bag chair, I grabbed his tube and handed it to her, she inserted it into his feeding tube and immediately the trapped air was release and he 'burped'.

Yay! Bravo for us task complete, or so we thought.  The boy wasn't finished. Before we had time to cap him off, his belch was followed by lunch, which sprayed out of the tube, and....well...... I took the hit and was covered in formula.

Instead of crying over spewed milk, we laughed and chalked it up to yet another adventurous day in the life and times of preschool.