Suck It Up, Red

So you have all heard me talk about it before: at my school, my classroom is known as "the hospital" due to the fact that I have a seriously ill student pretty much every year. If your kid is placed in my room, be afraid, be very afraid. So far I have had a girl who can't really talk due to something missing in her throat (and now that she is older she has seizures and the like), a legally blind student, a student with hearing aides in both ears, two children in wheelchairs due to broken bones, a student with leukemia, and a student with a degenerative bone disease who had to have major surgery last year. So why am I telling you this?

I have been feeling a funk coming on lately, and maybe even feeling a tiny bit sorry for myself. There is nothing like a sick kid to slap you back to reality.

One of my first graders (6 years old) just came up to me and said, "I am not going to be here tomorrow and my mom wanted me to ask you if there is any work I can bring with me. I will be in the hospital all day having my chemo treatment."

Um, yeah, I think I'll stop moping now.