Olivia hasn't had too many problems with her teachers over the years. Most have been very accepting of her diabetes and the care she needs to take with it while she's in class. I have a packet of stuff I give to all of her teachers at the beginning of each year and thus far, that seems to be sufficient.
This year, though, she got switched a couple of weeks into the school year. She got a new English teacher and I just assumed that the old one would pass along the diabetes info. Wrong.
The teacher knows about her diabetes, but he makes Olivia nervous for some reason. Every time her meter beeps, he asks what it is. He rolls his eyes when she has to go down to the nurse’s office. He gets annoyed when she has to get water when her blood sugar is high. The school nurse has spoken to him twice and I’ve spoken to him once about what she needs during the day. I get an “OK, no problem, I understand,” response and then, a week or two later, Olivia’s telling me again that the guy is giving her a bit of stick about it. Given that this is the teacher who thought MLK was assassinated in 1963 and that Rosa Parks died last month, I don’t think he’s got everything on the ball.
I’m not sure what to do. I’ve told Olivia to tell me if it starts happening again. I’ll go down to the school and request a meeting with him and the principal and the nurse, if need be, but I really don’t want it to come to that. I’m happy to talk to the guy, but jeez, if he’d just retain a little bit of the information, it would be great.
She had problems once before, in 3rd grade, with a teacher, oddly enough, who also had type 1. That teacher thought we were completely irresponsible for putting Olivia on the pump (um, excuse me? My child. My decision.) and didn’t hesitate to let me know. I responded with a barrage of information on insulin pump therapy, including a letter from Olivia’s endocrinologist, stating that pumps were another form of insulin delivery. Not better, not worse, just different. It stopped the comments, but man, was I pissed.
Anyway. I digress. As usual.
I don’t want to come off all mama bear-ish towards this teacher, but I’m starting to get annoyed. I need to figure out a way to get it thru his head that she’s not malingering, that if she says she needs the nurse, she needs the nurse. And that one little beep during class is not the end of the world.
