Return to School!
On Wednesday, December 1st, three days after the discharge, we had an appointment of following-up with the Nurse Coordinator at Stanford. She checked Kota’s basic function and asked if he had any problems. Kota still had occasional headache, but it was getting less severe. He wanted to go back to school, because hanging around at home was too boring. The Nurse Coordinator said that he could go to school and he could even resume physical activity once he felt confident. So we let him go to school from next day. That was 8 days after the second surgery. Because Dr. Steinberg also told before that he could go back to school one week after the surgery. Let’s give it a try and see how it goes.
Upon going back, I wrote a letter to the principal and Kota’s home-room teacher, saying that he could have headache, so he wants to carry Tylenol, TIA could happen, but it would last only for minutes, so just watch him, also call my wife’s cell, then my cell, call 911 if unconscious, and so on. We had to get a form from school and bring it to the hospital to fill it out in order to have Kota carry Tylenol at school. This form certifies that Kota understands when and how to take the medicine.
The first several days went by peacefully. The incident took place next Wednesday, the fifth day since he was back.
It was on December 8th, around 11:40am, just before lunch break. When moving to multipurpose room from classroom, Kota had a major TIA. He had numbness in a leg and a little unconscious, almost collapsed. Fortunately, the teacher was looking at him and supported him. The seizure was gone after several minutes as usual and Kota said it’s OK. But the teacher saw the TIA for the first time, which made him very nervous. He notified the school nurse and the nurse called my wife. So far it was exactly the procedure we asked. My wife went to the school immediately and took Kota home. Meanwhile, the school called the school district nurse, who called my cell and I knew what happened. She also told me that before letting a child go back to school I had to get a certificate letter from the doctor. I said we have let him go because we got an authorization from the hospital, but she was not convinced. Moreover, she even blamed at the teacher for not calling 911, because she did not recognize about Kota’s disease at all. The teacher just followed the procedure I wrote in the letter, however, the school district nurse was not convinced by directions from a parent. That would be understandable. But to be honest it would not make sense to call 911 upon each TIA.
Next day we let him go to school, because he looked fine. We went to the Principal’s office to let her know just in case. Then we happened to meet Kota’s teacher. So we were going to say thank you for your response yesterday… He said let’s talk with Principal and took us to her office. Principal said that they would not be able to accept Kota until they would get an authorizing letter from the hospital. I explained that we had got an authorization from the hospital and such a TIA was within expectation, but it did not make sense to them. They said it was the policy. So, there seemed to be no way. We took Kota home. From my point of view, I confirmed if there would be any documentation required in advance, and they said no. I notified them about the schedule of surgery and when Kota would be back to school. I also voluntarily wrote a letter to explain the potential TIAs and how to deal with it, which was never asked from the school. I had never heard about the policy. Even though they brought up such a policy after they saw the actual TIA, which I can’t be convinced… But I understand it is scary to see a TIA (and they would not understand why I was telling so persistently until they actually see it). Well, seems like what I need to do is to get a letter from the hospital. The hospital was kind enough to prepare a letter and fax it to the school next day. After all, Kota was able to go back to school.