[senco-forum] child with leukaemia

Hi Lucy,
We have had a number of children with leukaemia and other serious
illness.   2 currently, 1 who very ill and 1 who is fine.   We do
medical care plans at the start with mum and school nurse and our
wonderful welfare person.  This sets out individual needs, exactly what
we would do under given circumstances, when we would contact mum, what
might be an emergency for that child etc.

With the nursery child, I spoke to all the parents (having first gained
mum's permission of course) about her illness, explaining that there was
no risk to their children, but that their children could pose a risk to
her - they are great about notifying us about chickenpox, measles and so
on, and she then is able to stay home and lessen the risk (her immune
system couldn't cope with these.)

The other, very ill, boy is in year 2.   The parents all know and the
kids in his class are great at looking after him.  What he wants most of
all is to be as much like the others as possible.  So, amongst other
things, his medical care plan talks about him going for a short sleep,
either in the book corner, or the medical room, if he needs to, rather
than be off school for a day to catch up if he is exhausted. We have
found the most useful thing is to be really flexible about what he does.
Our main objective for him is to be in school as much as possible.

One word of warning - we have several times been in a situation where
extremely anxious parents have wanted to keep children off because of
their own fears and worries.  All very understandable, but not
necessarily in the child's best interests.   A good relationship with
parents is vital, and it's worth spending a considerable amount of
precious time early on, in order to get this right.   Our wonderful
welfare lady is the day to day link person, but I am always available,
especially after hospital appointments etc, or if the parents seem to be
going through a particularly stressful period.

Good luck.

Beth Huke

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