I never thought I'd be a medic, and I'm not. Still, when the six-year-old wants to know about AIDS, it's me he asks, and we talk about it. Yep, if somebody had it, it would be totally safe for you to play with their legos. Then a seven-year-old runs up to me and says, I'm kind of freaking out! She's been running hard and can feel her heart pounding on both sides of her chest and is worried she might accidentally have two hearts. I introduce her to the jugular and the radial, and we talk about how strong the heart is.
In the same day, two kids ask me what cancer is, and I tell them. I try to tell the truth without being scary. I tell them there are lots of ways to get better from it and doctors are getting smarter all the time and that if they ever got sick, there would be lots of people helping them get well again. I hope that it's true.
I issue band-aids, neosporin, ice packs. Lately I've paid a lot of attention to feet. The feet of the children of the wealthy might often be mistaken for not-so-privileged feet. Who's more likely to have ill-fitting or worn-out shoes, the children of the poor or of the rich? I only know that I see a lot of blisters from kids whose parents buy the shoes alone, guessing at size, because it's a hassle to take the kid to the shoe store to try things on. Or they buy last year's size because it honestly doesn't occur to them that small feet get bigger. Or they buy two sizes too big because the kid will grow into them eventually, and that'll save the bother of the shoe store for at least a year or so. I'm not inferring or exaggerating. I've heard conversations and I have seen the evidence.
The evidence is children who limp and grimace through a game of tag. The evidence is blisters on top of blisters on tiny toes and heels. Sometimes, ok, maybe don't read this sentence, sometimes I sit a kid down on the floor and untie the laces and slip the dress-code-brown loafer off the little foot, and I try to be gentle and the kid tries to be brave, and I can see where the problems are even before I take the sock off, because there is dried blood and there is fresh blood.
And there is Ava, who said her feet hurt, and I took off her shoes and socks and saw that her toenails had grown so far out that they curled over the ends of her toes. Because no one had cut them for her. Because no one had thought of it. Who's supposed to do it - the maid? Me? Lawsuit. Ava is four years old and nobody is paying attention to her body at all. Now that I'm looking for it, I see she has tangled hair and filth behind her ears. She's so little and her parents are so rich and this is what an expensive private school is about.
