Not So Smooth

Sunday was so perfect and I was charmed into thinking I was going to spend the summer basking in the sun and frolicking through fields of flowers.

The kids this week are all sponsored by a nun who has been sending kids to camp for 20 years. She raises all of the money, gives them sleeping bags and toothbrushes and everything they need for camp. Kids are kids and these kids are no different than the rest of our campers. Except that they are different because instead of parents calling and emailing me obsessively for every little detail, many of these kids come without any other preparation than what the nuns do for them.

We have twin 8 year old boys this week who both have severe asthma. Their parents didn't send the correct medication for them. Because so many of the medical forms were incomplete, it took Nurse J and our other nurse for this week two days to organize everything, call parents and sort out the information they needed. So it was Monday morning before the nurse called to ask about these boys, and even then, the mom said it was fine. But then the dad called back later to say he would drive it up to camp that evening.

But by Monday afternoon, the camper was wheezing and very sick and when I got a walkie talkie call from Nurse J saying she was heading into the local city (where the hospital is), my response was, "I will be right over [to the health center]". She took him to the ER and, as it turns out, he was even sicker than we thought and they were preparing to airlift him to the big city. Luckily they were able to get his oxygen up and didn't need to do that, but it took several hours.

The parents were headed up to camp to bring the medication, but by this time, it was 9pm. On the way, they hit a deer and messed up their car and so by the time they got to camp, they were really stressed out. It took a lot longer at the hospital than Nurse J had expected and so they eventually decided to go there. Except that they got lost and had to come back to camp. By this time it was 11:30pm and everyone was tired.

Nurse J got back to camp with the camper at midnight. The parents took him home and I collapsed into bed thinking, "It's only MONDAY!"

Meanwhile...

Earlier in the evening, I was sitting in the bathroom supervising the kids as they brushed their teeth and got ready for bed. The oldest girls were getting ready and chatting and I overhead one of the girls names. Except that it wasn't her name, it was her sister. I had received an email on Sunday saying that they had tried to convince the nun to let her sister come at the last minute and she'd said no. She wasn't sure if the right girl got on the bus, but the camper (and the parents) had said that was her, so unless they were lying to her face (a nun!), that was right.

All of the paperwork, including her activity sign up sheet she had filled out, said her sister's name. But when I heard that and asked if she was her sister, she admitted it. I didn't say anything to her- she's 12. Her PARENTS told her to lie.

I know they probably thought, "what's the big deal which kid comes?" But this discovery came at the same time I had just sent a kid to the hospital. If I had to bring her to the hospital, I would have NO information on her. Also, her sister is one medication, which, during health checks, she claimed not to have with her. But the problem is, if that medication had been here, and we'd given it to her (thinking she was her sister), she would have gone into cardiac arrest.

Paperwork is important and knowing which kid are responsible for is important.

I'm not going to send her home; it's not her fault. But I'm annoyed. What are parents thinking sometimes?!

I just keep shaking my head today and saying, "it's the third day!"