You Pulled What Out of Your Athlete's Where Now?

I've been around the athletic training room for ten years now, first as an athlete and student and then as a certified, and I can say with some certainty that I have seen some pretty weird things.  Some of the strangest stuff has been things I've had to extract from athletes.  You'd think by the time they're teenagers they would stop putting erasers up their noses but no, that's not the case.

2003 - "Oh whoops, they're stuck..."

Most kids don't like the nose plugs.  Honestly, who likes shoving a scratchy cotton tampon up their nose?  Not me.  The day after a game where I had plugged a player's nose, he came to the training room to get taped and began to play with the box of nose plugs we had on the table.  Suddenly the bright idea came from his teammates - how many can you fit in your nose?  I turned my back to tape an ankle and then heard the fatal words "Oh whoops, they're stuck..." Four nose plugs up one pretty normal sized nostril.  FOUR.  Fifteen minutes and a hefty scoop of skin lube later my player had the use of his nostril back. 

2004 - "Can you look at my eye?"

When a player says they've been having itching in their eye all day usually my first guess is pink eye, allergies, or a corneal abrasion.  Not even close with this lacrosse player.  Peeling back his eyelid with a cotton swab I noticed the problem immediately but was still pretty foggy on the cause - how on earth did he get a half centimeter long piece of mechanical pencil lead in his eye?  How I didn't immediately come to the answer I got I'll never know - "Oh, we had a lead fight yesterday afternoon."  Clearly I should have thought of that one right from the start.

2005 - "...well they gave me five bucks!"

We adults know it's a bad idea to put things in our noses, they're fragile.  For some of my football players, this lesson hadn't yet been learned by the age of 18.  This particular individual came in to the athletic training room with tears in one eye and blue mucous emerging from his nose.  I pointed at the tissue box and asked no questions.  There's a point where you just don't want to know - but I got to know anyhow of course.  My football player snorted an entire pixie stick.  If you're not familiar with this particular confection, I can tell you that they're on the sour side and completely sugar.  If you've ever been making a ten gallon cooler of Gatorade and gotten the powder dust up your nose then you know how uncomfortable this is.  After flushing him through with saline, I finally had to ask why he did it.  Personally I'm not sure it was worth the five bucks!

2008 - "My foot is killing me, I think I have a blister"

Soccer players are prone to blisters, it's a fact of life, so when one comes in complaining that they think they have a blister that's usually what it is.  Normally I don't lance blisters unless an athlete is in a lot of pain or they're looking like they're going to get infected.  This one looked bad, like a blister had somehow developed under several layers of skin.  So we got out the callus shaver, shaved him down, then went to work with a scalpel.  Without going into detail, it was pretty obvious after the first cut that this was no blister.  A splinter then?  Sort of.  It was buried so deeply that it took three athletic trainers and close to 40 minutes to extract the half centimeter long shard of wood.  After puzzling over it for a minute, the athlete was able to identify it and how it got in there - over a month ago he had popped a blister using a toothpick, part of it must have broken off in his foot.

2009 - "My ear hurts, help!"

Swimmers are usually pretty good about not getting into too much weird trouble (aside from ridiculous injuries stemming from their inability to ambulate properly on dry land) but this one made the wall of fame, mostly because of how ridiculous it was.  A swimmer with ear pain probably has swimmer's ear, so you get your otoscope and take a look, find the swelling, send them to the doctor.  Or it could be a tiny wad of paper shoved way back in their ear.  How did it get in there?  "Oh... it might be a spitball."


2011 - "I just wanted to see what it felt like..."

In my old training room, I had my taping tables pretty far away from my office, so I didn't pay much attention to what was going on in there while I was taping.  A lacrosse player limped out while I was taping one of his teammates, and I noticed a small amount of blood running down his leg.  Naturally (in my best parent voice) I had to ask, what did you do?  Pulling up his shorts, he revealed three staples embedded in his mid thigh.  I held out a pair of forceps silently, and our conversation was about as follows:

Athlete: Can you do it?  It really hurts!
Me: Duh, but you put them in there.
Athlete:  I can't just seriously pull them out, ok?

At this point I rather unceremoniously yank all three staples out and proceed to scrub the area with an alcohol pad, much to the young man's displeasure.

Me: That's what you get for being a dumb ass.
Athlete: It hurts bro!
Me: What did we learn?
Athlete: [short pause] Don't be a dumb ass?
Me: Good boy.

I can't be the only one that this happens to.  Got a story about weird things you've removed from your athletes?  Share it!!!

Being There For Your Students - Is it your job?

A school shooting not far from my high school this morning has prompted me to think about just how lucky I am to have and to have had such wonderful kids.  Sure I've seen my share of moody teenagers, locker room fights, bad grades, and sad faces, but none of those things matter.  I have good kids.

High school is a terrible place.  It's a transition period where kids are growing up into adults and everyone is generally confused about just about everything.  Unfortunately it's something we all have to go through in life, and we learn from our experiences and for the most part are better people for them.  There are times when our teens start to feel alone in all of it, like they have no one to talk to because no one will understand or no one will listen.  That's where we come in as educators.

I'm sad to say I've heard fellow ATC's say that kids coming in and wanting to talk isn't their job.  I believe strongly that it really does take a village to raise a child, and we that work at schools are a part of that village. Athletic Trainers are a really important part of the lives of student athletes.  A lot of us are teachers, but the kids call us by our first names and feel comfortable joking around with us and talking to us.  We're something like a bridge between the student and faculty worlds.

While I know that it gets me weird looks from my students and coworkers alike, I have a "Safe Zone" sticker on the window of my office.  If you aren't familiar with these, originally it was a sign that school workers were hanging in their offices to display that it was a safe space for LGBT students to come and talk and not have to worry about judgment or discrimination.  My sticker extends itself to all students, advertising that my office is a "Safe Zone" where they are welcome to come and feel free to express themselves how they need to, without fear of being judged or discriminated against for anything.  It might seem hokey, but it does work.  Weekly I have conversations with my students ranging from worries about college, fights with mom, school drama, relationships, and even just simple things like excited anticipation for dates or fun school functions. 

Even if you don't get the opportunity to talk to your students informally like this, make yourself available.  Don't shut yourself off from your students.  You don't have to be Facebook friends with them and share every waking detail of your personal life with them, but you should try to be there for them. 

At the end of the day, being an advocate and an ear for your students might not be in writing in your job description, but it became part of your job when you signed up to work at a school.  Don't think of it as a burden or as extra work - think of it as another opportunity you have to change a life.  The teens we have as students today are our future.  If you spend even just five minutes talking to a student, you might change his or her life for the better.  Sometimes they can drive us nuts, but each and every one of our students is a precious life that we can leave our mark on for the better, and in turn they can change us too.  Be open minded and willing to listen, and I guarantee you'll change things for someone.