The Best Kind of Chaos

 Marketplace Day

Tuesday started out poorly. Backing my fun car out of the garage, I hit the rearview mirror on the side of the garage door hard enough that it broke... not off, but enough that it wouldn't just snap back into place as with previous similar occurrences. I would love to blame the mishap on my new progressive lenses, but the truth is I suffer from a lack of depth perception every day. I pulled the purple car back into the garage and moved my bags and mugs over to the minivan, feeling more comfortable driving in commute traffic on the freeway in a car with a complete set of functional mirrors.

Thankfully, this was not a sign of things to come. It was Marketplace Day in the fourth grade. The idea for a marketplace came from students in my partner teacher's classroom. As we began reading Lunch Money by Andrew Clements in conjunction with our unit on economy, a student question turned into an idea for a new summative assessment. We created a rubric as students were deciding on products and creating their businesses. 

I was a step behind my partner teacher in getting my students prepped for the big day because he ran with the student's idea the day the question was asked. But we brainstormed, students self-selected their business partners, and created business plans complete with a task list and person responsible for the action item before Marketplace Day.

Then I got sick. The week my students were using class time to prep for Marketplace Day, I was in and out of urgent care, asleep on the couch, and so sick with infected diverticulitis that ripping carnival tickets (for Marketplace Day) necessitated a three-hour nap. I wrote sub plans as best as I could while I was really not functional and linked the rubric into the slideshow. I hoped and prayed for the best as I took yet another nap.

Students who did not travel for spring break had that time to continue to create units of their product to sell. Monday was the first day back after spring break. I was not well on Monday - moving slowly and probably suffering from the decimation of the microbiome in my gut from the two ridiculously strong antibiotics that kicked the infection out. 

I had the students focus on brainstorming activities for the written reflection that was the last item on the rubric, and the activity that the teachers covering for me (primarily from my school's staff) had not gotten to during my absence. My students told me, when asked, that they had not looked at the rubric since before I got sick. The staff members who covered for me assured me that was not the case, but given that was the student perception, it was worrisome on the eve of the big day. 

There was also time to meet with groups to finalize plans and do a preliminary set up of booths. I checked in with each group and asked them if they felt ready for the 200+ students whose teachers had signed up to attend. Most seemed overwhelmed at the idea of so many potential customers.

I decided there wasn't much I could do at this point to change the trajectory of the first ever Fourth Grade Marketplace. I gave each group as much encouragement as possible but also asked them to plan for how they could ensure they would have enough units in stock to have something to offer the final class of the day. We brainstormed holding back some units of product and raising prices.

After my car mishap on Tuesday morning, I arrived at school without further incident. I ripped more carnival tickets for a class of preschoolers who signed up on Monday evening and would be our last class of the day, and handed out 20 tickets per student to each teacher who had signed up. Every shopper would have $5.00 worth of tickets to spend. My students arrived with supplies and energy.

The day was an amazing success. Students had products ranging from jewelry and vinyl decals to lemonade and brownies. At least two groups had created Google Site websites and taken preorders from students. Some were offering discounts for students who came with coupons that had been posted around the building in my absence. None of my students' businesses ran out of product until the very last class, the late sign-up preschool class, came through. Although, during the break when fourth graders could shop, I did have one student creating more product for his booth, and one booth resorted to selling whipped cream on a napkin when they ran out of brownies and plates.

During the day, I felt like I sat on a student desk, pushed out of the way in the front of the room, during most of the action. But my smartwatch told a different story. Even though I was still recovering from a fairly severe illness, I took over 9,000 steps. Whoops. But in reality, my students created the first ever fourth grade marketplace on their own. Really. I was not in the building during their prep and my lesson on Monday seemed to freak them out more than help them prepare for the big day.

Feedback from the teachers who came through was nothing but positive. They told me how excited their kids were to attend Marketplace Day, how impressed they were with the products for sale, and how happy the students were with their purchases. The products sold had real value for their customer base, which included many teachers. The middle school schedule did not allow the seventh and eighth graders in the building to attend. Their teachers informed me they were sad they could not attend. Middle school students were sad that they could not come to a fourth-grade event. WOW.

One teacher in the building purchased a fold out drawing from two of my students and took it home to her toddler. She sent me a video of her daughter playing with the picture: unfolding the shark and roaring when the teeth inside a gaping mouth come into view. The boys who created the drawing turned red, grinned, and gave each other thumbs up when I showed them the video,

I had one parent helper who was in the room for the entire Marketplace Day. He cleaned up spills, picked up dropped products for buyers over encumbered by their purchases, collected random debris and threw it away, and took over booths for students who needed to use the restroom or wanted to shop for themselves. As our final class of preschoolers left for the other fourth grade classroom, he told me, "That was the best kind of chaos." Indeed, it was.

My students had so much fun and learned so much about economics. They were not upset in the slightest that they had to man their booths during their morning recess and commented on how quickly the day went by. The first ever Fourth Grade Marketplace Day was a roaring success that I really can't take much credit for.

Well Enough to Work

 After missing a week of school due to slow to respond, infected diverticulitis, I spent the first weekend of my spring break catching up on the grading I had at home from before my absence but had been too ill to worry about. On Monday I drove myself to school (the first time I had driven in over a week) to trade out scored papers for those that were turned in during my week-long absence.

My desk was a sea of papers, mostly the sub notes I had sent and extra copies. So many extra copies... because a quarter of my class missed part of the week I missed for their extended spring break trips. There's going to be a heck of a lot of work to chase on the other side of spring break.

I got to see the Easter mosaic pictures students started the week before I got sick. Most are still works in progress, but three students finished. And now I know I have to plan time for the rest of the class to complete theirs.

I figured it wasn't fair to measure where staples and paperclips are increasing the width, but it's still a pretty hefty stack of work for my spring break. It was important to me to get in early in the week so I could begin sorting through the work students submitted in my absence. Ideally, they would have started their spring break knowing what they owed me and I would have started mine without much (if any) grading to do. But that wasn't in the cards this year. Fortunately, I found several sets of already scored papers, the grammar and spelling assignments, within the stack. I also didn't write anything too demanding into my sub plans. Other than needing to reread the chapters they read in our novel, Lunch Money by Andrew Clements, to ensure I remember what happened before looking at their worksheets, it's all pretty quick to score.

My friend and co-worker left an answer key for the math review sheet she created (yes, created!) and test she administered that had all the work shown. Since I'm still not 100% well, that was incredibly helpful for my sanity. But the best part about the math test was that she told early finishers to "draw pretty pictures for Mrs. Conrow on the back."

I am still recovering. It's disappointing to give my spring break over to recovery and catch-up work, but it's a lot better than needing to take two weeks off in a row, and huge orders of magnitude better than needing emergency surgery... which was an eventuality the urgent care doctor was preemptively planning for during my first visit.

Diverticulitis

 

While the weather has been going crazy, oscillating from 75 degrees to snow and hail within days, I have spent the early part of this spring mostly asleep. I recovered nicely from the five sick days I took mid-March and was well enough to enjoy Zoom conferences. 

However, I felt myself slowing down the first week of April. I knew I didn't feel right but couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. I didn't want to move. I couldn't make myself walk fast. Nothing hurt, but there was definite discomfort in my abdomen. I didn't want to bend or reach for anything if I didn't have to. It wasn't that I couldn't... again, I wasn't in any pain, but I just didn't want to.

Last Saturday night I finally realized I might have a UTI. I was supposed to meet friends for a pedicure and a boozy brunch on Sunday morning so I bent and reached to shave my legs and dressed in pants that could be pushed up above my knee. We weren't meeting until 10:00am, so after I was ready to go, I logged onto my medical app and looked at my care options for a Sunday. After a bit of clicking around, I called the 24/7 advice line and spoke with a nurse. She, in turn, spoke with a doctor, and they hatched a plan that was only slightly illogical. I was to go to the only urgent care center open in the area on Sunday, in Bellevue, where she had already put in an order for a urine analysis. Then I would return home and call the advice line in the afternoon to receive my results and most likely get a prescription for antibiotics, that I would have to drive back to Bellevue to pick up.

Grumbling about having to drive to Bellevue, probably twice in one day, I cancelled on my friends and asked my husband if he would come with me. It didn't seem necessary at the time, but I didn't want to have to go alone. 

Upon arriving at the urgent care facility, I told the person at the front desk I already had a lab order put in by the advice nurse. She said, "I think we have to check you in for urgent care anyway." I was checked in but had to wait for triage before being allowed to use the restroom. It was an uncomfortable wait. I knew I was very grumpy, so I apologized to my husband for dragging him on this longer than expected excursion.

Something in my description of symptoms alarmed the doctor enough that I had blood drawn and was scheduled for a CT scan. But during my uncomfortable wait sitting in the waiting room, I had overheard the front desk being informed that there was no CT tech until 1:30, and if anyone came in with an order for a CT scan, they'd have to come back the next day. Luckily for me, they were able to refer me to the hospital across the street, and a nurse took me through the underground hallways in a wheelchair for my CT scan.

Having the scan done across the street was great because I didn't have to wait several hours. But having the scan done across the street meant my doctors had to wait for the other medical facility to read the scan and send them the results. In total I spent four hours in urgent care, climbing in and out of the hospital bed to use the restroom probably at half hour intervals, even though I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything.

Finally, the CT scan results came back, and I was diagnosed with infected diverticulitis - basically my intestine is infected. I asked the doctor if I should be looking at taking time off from work. He said I needed two days of complete rest and put me on two different antibiotics. As we waited for the release papers, I emailed my school and told my principal I wouldn't be in until Wednesday and that I'd write sub plans when I got home.

Leaving urgent care, I had a difficult time figuring out how to get into the car without extreme discomfort. I hadn't eaten all day but discovered I really didn't want to eat. I let out a squeak of discomfort when the car went over the curb to get into our driveway. My husband noted that he noticed a significant difference in how I climbed in and out of the hospital bed at the beginning of my stay in urgent care vs. the end. It turns out, I was in much worse shape than I even realized. It was a good thing I cancelled brunch with my friends in favor of seeking medical attention.

On Monday, coming down the stairs, on my butt because I didn't want to walk, had me in tears. Interestingly, I still wouldn't have called the sensations I was feeling pain. I was uncomfortable and didn't want to move, but it never was the sensation I think of as pain. There was no sharp twinge, no dull ache... just I sense of "I don't wanna!" But it was so prevalent that I was in tears. 

Monday was the worst. My husband told me on Monday night, "There's no way you're going to work this week." Stubbornly, I still held out hope that I just needed to give the antibiotics one more day to work their magic and I'd be able to see my students on Wednesday. But on Tuesday morning, I sat on the couch and didn't eat for a long time because after getting downstairs, making tea and toast seemed too hard. 

My husband was right, I needed the week off. On Wednesday I tackled what felt like the smallest task on my work to do list: ripping carnival tickets into sets of 20 for an event my students are hosting after their spring break, which is next week. I needed a two-hour nap after the work of ripping and folding tickets before reaching to set them on the table next to me. And I only got halfway through what I need for the event. So, I checked in with my medical team again. As can be expected from medical professionals who can't examine you in person, they recommended I head back to urgent care.

Thursday's trip to urgent care was only about three hours long. I had the same urine and blood tests done and waited around in a hospital bed. As I told the doctor how bad I had been on Monday, I said, "But I didn't come back because I figured I needed to give the antibiotics time to work." He said, "That's right." Small validation for how unwell I continued to feel. In any case, I was sent home without additional treatment, which could have ranged from antibiotics administered via IV, a procedure to drain something or other, or out and out surgery. Yesterday was a false alarm visit to urgent care - I was diagnosed with slow to respond, partially treated, infected diverticulitis. 

Meanwhile, in my classroom, one of the friends I was supposed to have a pedicure and brunch with offered to teach my math class while I was out and the other one offered to make whatever copies were needed. They've both been texting me throughout the week to check on my well-being. When my absence stretched from two days to five, they sprang into action to find internal coverage for my class because two other teachers had already tried and failed to find a sub for Thursday. We were already covering them in-house, and in fact I was slotted to cover eighth grade homeroom on Thursday morning while my kids were in a specialist's class. I'm really not sure how the school managed with three absent teachers on Thursday and no subs. But they did. As far as I know, no one complained, everyone just jumped in to help where they could. Since I spent the bulk of Thursday in urgent care again, I was incredibly grateful that my classroom was not something I had to worry about. My school community is pretty amazing. I'm also grateful for the timing of my spring break, next week, so I have another week to relax where I don't have to worry about finding a sub or writing sub plans. I just hope my students aren't too traumatized by my two five-day absences almost within a month of each other.