I'm going to marry my new teacher, or at least give her an apple

Last quarter ended on an awkward note, as I stayed after my final to speak to my A&P instructor about his inappropriate comments throughout the quarter - see my last post for more info. So imagine my unpleasant shock when, the Friday before classes were due to begin on Monday, I got a letter telling my I hadn't paid my spring quarter tuition and was therefore DROPPED FROM ALL MY CLASSES. WTF. That's a horrible way to let me know that. Wouldn't logic tell you that if someone owes you money, you should give them notice of that BEFORE it becomes a problem?

Nope. That was the first I'd heard of it, because up until now my financial aid has covered all of my tuition with no problems.

So now I was faced with the possibility that once I paid the extra money financial aid didn't cover, I might have to try to get into whatever A&P 2 class is available. Which includes the one taught by my last instructor. And both he and I would probably rather eat some glass than have that happen. Awesome.

Long story short, it all worked out and I'm deleriously happy to be enrolled in my (female) teacher's A&P 2 class. Today was the first lecture, and she's organized, clear, and seems to be an excellent instructor. And hasn't mentioned her genitals once!

I love her. I'm so, so, so relieved to be taking her class! This is going to be a good quarter.

Yeah Buddies!

I got my first Chem exam back, and scored an A-. I'm thrilled by this! The first two chapters, what the test was on, involved me relearning all the algebra I'd forgotten since high school. Plus all the regular chemistry topics we were all learning in the class.

Now that we're past that part, the following chapter on naming compounds, Lewis diagrams, and predicting molecular geometry are way, way easier.

Plus my lab partner is really nice; she's a CNA also, and works at a skilled nursing facility. We were swapping stories about the weird residents and the most horrifying post mortem cares we've done, and it's great because we're both 'returning students' (she's in her thirties) so we're both actually motivated to do well in the class because we've got other stuff to do besides goof off.

Work today was sucky.

One of the CNA's that's been at the GreatRep for a few years was fired this week for getting into altercation with a resident. WTF? I haven't heard any details, so I don't know if she just snapped, but the resident she was yelling at is very compliant and nonverbal, and never combative. Not like it's ever okay to really yell at someone you're supposed to be caring for, but if that person had, say, slapped you across the face with their wet brief and then spat on you, one might understand raising your voice a smidgen more than your heart tells you is right. But I can't imagine that anything like that had happened, given who was involved in this. Bizarre.

And yes, the brief-slapping thing is real and did really happen. Not to me, thank goodness. But the resident who did it is alive and kicking. And told me last week that she would like to "shoot [me] with a gun and make a beautiful mess out of [me]". I just sighed and rolled my eyes. That's her horrible, horrible baseline.

I cheer myself up by talking to the adorable little lady who asks for cocoa by calling it "kokomoko". So cute!

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

This is in very poor taste, but remember the guy who was threatening to come to my facility and kill his wife (and anyone who got in his way) and then himself?

He's dead!

He had a heart attack. Not that surprising since he kept checking himself out of the hospital AMA in order to go back home and threaten his wife and family and us some more.

I know, he was probably once a nice guy, and obviously was suffering from some kind of mental illness. But he refused help over and over again. And I think it's fine that I want someone off this planet that is wanting to come and shoot one of my demented little old ladies.

And now he is. I'm not sorry. It's a huge relief not to have that hanging over my head at work anymore.

Phoned it in, in a positive sense

Yep, that's right, I called Child Protective Services about my ex-coworker Calliope. They do prefer that you be able to give them your name and number, and the names/ages of the children you're calling about, as well as the parents' names and address. Luckily for me (as an abuse reporter, not as a taxpayer) Calliope's family is on "medical assistance" (ie her husband's on disability) so the person I spoke with was able to pull up her address easily. Since I haven't witnessed any direct child abuse, all I could report is that she is clearly a meth addict, and I know for 100% certain that she drives while intoxicated, both with and without her kids in the car.

As the case worker I talked to said, that's not enough for them to go and investigate the family. However, when something else inevitably happens, this will go a long way toward building a case for intervention. No one can be an adequate parent and a meth addict at the same time. I'm just so sorry for those kids that they have to wait for someone else to call it in again. I hope their teachers are being alert for signs of abuse and neglect.

As a reminder, if you have any reason to suspect child abuse or neglect in any kids you encounter, a national number is 1-800-4-A-Child and you can easily find the local numbers with google. If you're wrong, nothing bad will happen. No one goes and snatches kids away for no reason; they don't have the resources for that, for one thing. At worst, they'll do a check-in and find that everything's okay, and the family will be puzzled. At best, they'll do a check-in, find that things are not okay, and those kids will get the help they need.

The current trend with child welfare services is toward "family preservation". The goal is to give malfunctioning families support services (counseling, food stamps, respite care, medical care, etc.) in order to rehabilitate them and get them to be a decent place for their children to live. Even the agency I used to work at (theraputic group home for teen boys with multiple failed foster care placements) provides preservation counseling/coaching. It's pretty cool. Especially with the lack of people who want to foster parent. It's hopefully easier to fix the parents that already exist than to find new ones.

I guess we'll know in a few more years after the next batch of longitudinal studies come out.

In the meantime, screw you, Calliope. I hope your kids have other caring adults in their lives.

Gotten Spoiled

Now that I do three 10-hour shifts weekly as a med aide, I typically just do one caregiver shift per week in order to stay full-time at my facility. This week I'm doing two, since I covered for one of my least favorite coworkers on Monday while she got all her top teeth pulled out.

Sidenote: a surprising number of my coworkers wear dentures. And the ones that do all smoke and have all been very poor their whole lives. Lesson? If you cannot afford routine dental care, don't spend your money on cigarrettes. I just went to the dentist for the first time in years and I had a couple of cavities but I'm keeping all my teeth. And I don't smoke.

Back to my original point, though, which is that I'm feeling sorry for myself for working 2 regular CNA shifts this week instead of just 1. I've gotten spoiled really fast, apparently, and would much rather pass meds than wrestle people into attending meals, using the bathroom, and going to bed. Also, I'm noticing more and more that the way evening shifts are structured is really not conducive to teamwork. Since one person must "watch the floor" ( meaning be out in the common areas to prevent falls, elopements, and altercations) and our dinner breaks go from 6pm-7:30pm, during that time whoever is doing care in the bathroom or a resident's room is on their own. One coworker is on break and the other is watching the floor. Not handy at all!

So, poor me, I've got to get ready for work now. Happily, my Certification raise should kick in today!

Homeostasis interruptus

I don't know if it's this way at every job, since being a nursing assistant is the only one I've had in the last few years that had coworkers. But it seems like the facilities I've worked at have little internal cycles; everything is calm and good, staffing is stable, we rarely work short. Then, for whatever reason, there's a period of upheaval, which usually SUCKS because it means we're frequently understaffed.

That's what's going on at my job right now. A few people have quit without notice in the last month (bizarre) and it affects all of us. Even though there are 3 shifts per day, it really is a 24-hour shift. So when I show up on evening shift, and one of my coworkers has already been there for hours to help out day shift who were short-staffed, it throws off our balance. Or when we arrive and get report that consists of "we were understaffed, so here are the things we didn't get done" followed by a long list of things we must catch up on immediately, it makes a difficult day. And I'm sure it's the same for the night shift as well.

Add to that the mixed blessing of training another new employee tonight (this is the 3rd new girl I've trained, but I think she'll stick, she's already been a CNA for 6 years) and you have a recipe for a really stressful evening. It's great having another set of hands to help get things done when you're training, but it can slow you down because you must verbalize what you're doing and slow down enough to explain and demonstrate everything. There's less of that with someone who's already experienced in the field but you still have to explain the residents' quirks and the facility policies and procedures.

Ugh.

Why can't people just stay at their jobs, or at least give 2 weeks notice if they won't??

Then again, you have a high-stress, high-difficulty job which pays little and requires little education. That sounds like a recipe for a lot of turnover, doesn't it?

I just have to hold on until the new folks are trained and settled in.

In Which I Get Judgemental

You know those things you think about people but you aren't supposed to say because it's mean/prejudiced/snotty etc.? That's what this is about.

I recently trained a new employee at the GreatRep, who seemed nice. She's CNA certified but hasn't worked as one before. However she was working as a caregiver at a group home for developmentally disabled adults. Lower volume/patient load than what we do at the GreatRep, but same basic principles plus she's been through the CNA course so she should already know the essentials from that. Seems like a reasonably good hire, is polite, reads and writes English well.

The first red flag for me was when she mentioned something about her home life; that she had been traveling around the world or something for a few years (the first few years of her son's life) and then finally came back because she fell in love with her high school non-sweetheart, and now they're engaged and living with her son's Father. Huh. I generally think one needs a pretty good reason not to be around for their child's first few years of life, and wanderlust doesn't really count in my book.

The second one was that she was complaining about her job at the group home and how the stress of combative residents there was triggering her PTSD (acquired when she was younger, not through serving in the armed forces but ostensibly by having an effed up childhood). Uh-oh. Our residents get combative, and even though they're mostly old ladies, they can be a little scary at times. Would this be a good fit for her?

Answer: nope. Apparently even though she quit her job at the group home and now only works part-time at the GreatRep, she was STILL calling off frequently, wanting to go home early, etc. That's such BULL! Our jobs are hard but do-able when we're fully staffed. Leaving your coworkers short-staffed for no good reason is totally rude and shady.

Then the other night she insisted she had such a bad back injury that she had to go home. Seriously? Even though you were sitting there talking to me like everything was fine and bustling around preparing your dinner? I don't buy it. I think that this girl has a crazy family and that made her crazy, and then she hasn't bucked up and gotten un-crazy. Which sucks, because she's a parent now. And instead of growing up and holding down a job, she is hoping to get disability or something after working part time for a few weeks. Ugh.

I know it's not kind to assume people are going to suck if they tell you they had a bad childhood or whatever, but here's the thing: if they've gotten over it enough to function well? They won't tell you right away. They'll be aware that doing so is inappropriate. People can come from chaos and turn out wonderfully, but those are the people you're surprised to find out were raised so horribly. The ones where you go "Oh, that all makes sense" are the ones who need to get their butts into therapy and figure their crap out.

Or at least not come work with me. Sheesh.

Subculture

In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain describes his fellow cooks as "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths,"

Never having worked in a restaurant beyond the unfortunate few months I hostessed at Denny's, I can't tell you whether I agree with him or not. But what I can tell you is that if a year ago you had asked me to describe a health care facility's nursing staff, I would have said something like they are neat, educated, professional, impersonal, hurried, interchangeable people. That was before my first day in Long Term Care, when I was shocked to find that my new coworkers resembled the grizzled veteran waitress at Denny's who has two trailers (one for her shoes and one to live in) much more than my previous Health care Worker Ideal.

In the nurse's station, I saw people who eat McDonald's for dinner, say they "ain't puttin' up with that shit" and wear long acrylic fingernails. People who live in trailers, or if they are under 25, with their parents. People who I thought were shockingly casual with the residents. Both the aides I trained with would go into a resident's apartment, plunk down on the nearest surface (be it a chair, a walker, or a bed) and casually ask that resident if he or she was ready for dinner, or whatever it was. That first week, I was horrified.

After having been at the facility for a few months now, I'm starting to understand the more unspoken rules among the staff: yes, they do swear in the nurse's station, but only with the door shut so residents don't overhear. No, I don't approve of the girls that date guys who take control of the couple's only car and drop their girlfriends off for work hours early and then call every five minutes leading up to the end of their shift, but as it turns out, neither does anyone else. Yes, they are very informal and casual with the residents, but these are people that they bathe, toilet, feed, and put to bed 5 days a week. These are people who say "Thanks, love you honey!" as we are walking out of their doors after helping them. And most importantly, though staff will cover for one another over small indiscretions such as texting when you could be charting, when it comes to actual patient care, they will bust anyone who is being neglectful. Because whether they're trashy or not, they love their residents. And I can respect that.

So now I'd describe long-term-care health care workers as half dysfunctional Wal-Mart family, half fierce patient advocates. And while I certainly hope to emulate the latter half of that and not the first, I've made peace with the rest of it. As long as they're caring for our residents properly, I've got no problem with them. And vice-versa.

And I've got my own acrylic nails now, too.