The School Nurse Called Me At Work And Said She Was Going To Start Throwing Away My Son’s EpiPens Because He Kept Pretending He Couldn’t Breathe To Get Attention. Nurse.
When the school nurse threatened to throw away my son’s life-saving medication because she thought he was pretending, I had no idea how close he was to a medical emergency.
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The school nurse threatened to throw away my son’s EpiPens because she believed my eight-year-old boy was pretending he couldn’t breathe to get attention. I was working on an engine when Nurse Pell called at 10:40 on a Thursday morning. Her voice was irritated rather than concerned. She claimed my son, Wren, always complained about breathing difficulties whenever gym class approached. She said she was tired of keeping two expensive auto-injectors in her office for a child she believed was exaggerating. Then she told me to come deal with him. I wiped my hands on a rag, informed my foreman that something was wrong with my child, and immediately left work. The nine-minute drive to Cardell Elementary felt unbearable. I knew Wren’s medical history, and something about the nurse’s dismissive tone frightened me more than she could possibly understand. When I finally reached the school, what I discovered inside her office was far worse than I had imagined.
Wren was sitting on a cot, struggling desperately to breathe. His lips had turned a frightening bluish color, and his chest pulled inward near his collarbones with every difficult breath. He was making a terrible wheezing sound that no parent should ever have to hear. The school secretary hovered anxiously in the hallway, but Nurse Pell remained seated at her desk. Directly in front of her sat both of Wren’s emergency auto-injectors, untouched in a plastic tray. She calmly insisted he was putting on a performance because he didn’t want to run laps. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My son had been diagnosed with a severe tree nut allergy and exercise-triggered asthma when he was three years old. I knew what an actual breathing emergency looked like. I crossed the room, grabbed one of his EpiPens, and administered it while counting carefully. All I could think about was getting air back into my little boy’s lungs.
Within roughly forty seconds, Wren’s breathing began to improve. Color slowly returned to his lips, and I finally felt the smallest measure of relief. But instead of recognizing the seriousness of what had happened, Nurse Pell dismissed the entire incident again. She suggested the medication had merely encouraged him to act as though he had been dying. I asked how long he’d been sitting there struggling. Her answer stopped me cold. Fifteen minutes. For fifteen terrifying minutes, my son had been only a few feet away from the medication he desperately needed, while the adult responsible for his care continued working at her desk. I stood there trying to understand how anyone could watch an eight-year-old struggle for air and decide he was simply misbehaving.
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The school nurse threatened to throw away my son’s EpiPens despite the fact that Wren had a documented medical condition and an emergency action plan. Those precautions existed precisely because a dangerous reaction could develop quickly.
When I finally found my voice, I reminded Nurse Pell that she didn’t have the authority to decide his symptoms were imaginary. She responded by telling me she’d worked as a school nurse for sixteen years and knew an attention seeker when she saw one.
Then Wren looked up at me with frightened, watery eyes and asked whether he was going to get in trouble.
That question hurt almost as much as seeing him struggle to breathe.
I reassured him that he would never be in trouble for needing medical help. But Nurse Pell continued insisting that he couldn’t come running to her whenever he became winded.
I took him home that afternoon. He was exhausted, shaky, and frightened by the sound of his own coughing.
We sat together on the couch until evening, and my little boy kept apologizing. He was sorry for leaving gym class. Sorry for upsetting the nurse. Sorry that his breathing had frightened everyone.
I kept telling him he had done nothing wrong.
But what troubled me most was the realization that Wren seemed to believe he needed to apologize for a condition he couldn’t control.
And as I listened to him blame himself, I began wondering how long the school nurse had been making my son feel this way—and what else had happened when I wasn’t there to protect him.
