The Field Trip that Wasn’t

Yesterday, Alex had her school first field trip since her diagnosis. Only she didn’t get to go. We learned about the field trip just last week, Tuesday the 3rd I think, even though the notice was dated February 20-something. It said that Alex’s class would be going to the Akosombo Dam and Kpong Water Works on March 11th, leaving the school at 7:00 a.m. and returning at 5:00 p.m. Experience has shown the return bus from the field trips is always late; sometimes as much as 90 minutes. So we're talking a day of about 11 hours outside of my control.

And the fee for this trip was GHC 20 (about $18) payable by Thursday, March 4th. Mike also had an excursion scheduled for that day, different trip though, with a fee of GHC 15. Truth time: We didn’t have the money for the fees on the day it was due, so we didn’t send the money in until Monday.

On Monday morning, I sent a note to Alex’s teacher, enclosing the money and suggesting that I be allowed to accompany Alex on the field trip, given her “special situation” and the need for additional testing and insulin injections outside of the normal school hours. I specifically said that Alex would not attend if I couldn’t go too.

After the kids had been in school for about an hour, we get a phone call that we should come and pick them up again, because most of the students and many of the teachers hadn’t shown up for school on the assumption it was a holiday (most of the public schools were on holiday but not SOS). So I rush in to get her and find that her teacher isn’t in, only a substitute. He acknowledges that he got the money, but didn’t read the note, but he listened to my diatribe and agreed it would be best for me to go. But of course, he's just the sub.

I figured on my way out, I’d go talk to the headmaster and run it up the flagpole, so to speak. He wasn’t in either (maybe he also didn’t know it wasn’t a holiday!).

Tuesday comes and I go to pick up Alex and talk to her teacher about the trip. At least today, her teacher is in. But she knows nothing about a note that I left for her. (And what is with that! Wouldn’t you assume a substitute would pass along the day’s doings?!) So I go through it (again) with her. She also thinks it is not unreasonable for me to go along, but she can’t make that call. She says I should talk to the assistant headmaster.

The assistant headmaster is not in. The office secretary (not the friendliest of sorts, by the way – I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile) suggests that we call the headmaster who also (still) isn't in. Okay.

I call hubby (headmaster’s old school mate, remember?) and tell him that I am something like 0 for 4 on this matter. He agrees that he’ll call Heady and let me talk to him. Now, truth is, Sly is not really sure about why I am insisting that I have to go along in the first place. He keeps thinking its all about glucose testing and insulin, and never the possibility – extreme as it may be – of an emergency situation where Alex goes so low that she seizes. I don’t think he believes that day will ever come. In a weird way, I hope it gets here soon, so it will be over and done with and he will see what I’m talking about. I’m not talking grand mal, just petit, one that I can handle with little difficulty. Sly has never seen Alex when she was low enough to be disoriented… at the point when she doesn’t know that she should suck liquid up out of the juice box straw that I inserted between her lips and has to be told to drink. No, he’s never seen that.

Well, a call is put into Heady and goes to voice mail. While waiting for his return call, we “discuss” other options. Like me riding behind the bus in Ekow’s taxi. Except that I won’t be allowed into the dam or the water works, since they are government installations and I wouldn’t be on the “guest list.”

Heady never called back. Yesterday, the school bus came and went without Alex. Alex and I went to the local pool and enjoyed the day.



So, was I being too overprotective? I know my husband thinks so. He’d have let her go on the field trip and hoped for the best. He believes that because her schools days are so “relatively” normal that this trip would be no different. Yes, her regular schools days are “relatively” normal. She tests her sugar before snack and lunch and she takes 2 units of a prefilled syringe for her lunch. But her lunch is always the same. Always. And still, her numbers are different every single day. And I’m also only 7 minutes away from the school just in case there’s an emergency.

So how can he expect that a field trip would be the same? Different eating times, different food, different snacks, different exercise schedule. All of those things combine to create a mathematical equation where you have to solve for X. Except that you don’t know all of the variables.

Sly asked me what I would do if there was an emergency. I’d administer glucagon, that’s what I’d do. I asked him what he’d do, and he didn’t have an answer.

So, am I being too overprotective? Did I blow this out of proportion? Well, we’ll never know. The bottom line is I was not willing to establish precedent by letting her go on the field trip alone. The outcome would be (in my mind) a lose-lose situation no matter what happened or didn’t happen. If she had had a problem, I wouldn’t be there. And if she didn’t have a problem, it would mean that I’d have to fight harder to go along on the next field trip. But some day, there may be a problem. And I want to prevent that some day from coming for as long as I can.