I have only been injured while teaching PE two times in almost 9 years. Once while I was student teaching - I broke my ring finger on my left hand (premonition??) and today. Today I was gently guiding a student with autism away from a padded wall in the gym because he was standing right in front of my makeshift screen for a yoga video. He turned his back toward the matted wall and bent my fingernail in on itself. It just so happened that, at the moment, my nails are pretty long.
I said pretty much every dirty word I knew - they just kept coming out of my mouth. At the same time, tears sprung up in my eyes and started cascading down my cheeks. The para closest to me asked what was wrong and I pretty much gave her the middle finger...my nail was still attached, but there was blood, and it was on my middle finger. She told me I looked pale and had me sit down right away.
Once I had pulled myself together, more or less, the three female paras made me go down to the nurse. Now, I've had long nails for years and I've never broken one this far down. My finger was throbbing and when I entered the nurse's office, I started crying again. It is very much unlike me to cry over something like this. Yes, it hurt, but I think there was more to it.
One, I hate getting injured. It's a pain in the butt to shower with an injured hand. It's sensitive because that part of your skin is supposed to be covered by nail. And two, I hate being here. And now I'm injured. Everything compounded on top of each other and I broke down.
The nurse had me run my finger under cold water and then she bandaged me up and gave me some illegal Advil (but you didn't hear that from me). I then went to the office to fill out my injury report. Thanks, OSHA, for that cute little folder with "so you've been injured on the job" information. The secretary had me go to the library to fill it out and I'm glad I did. By the time I was done, I felt sick to my stomach and sweaty. I only had two more kids to see so I told their paras (because, honestly, elementary teachers haven't a clue as to my schedule) that I was going home and showed them my bandaged finger and told them my tale of woe.
What are the odds that I would hurt myself in the same district, nine years apart? On the same hand, nearly the same finger? I think this is another sign that I should heed. Just this morning I started bookmarking district websites on my computer at work (before I was injured). I typically don't start job searching until March, but this year it feels as if I've never stopped job searching... Let's just hope this year goes by quickly and with no other injuries.
And I will leave you with a picture of how I'm feeling right about now:
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