Just another day
If anyone had asked me today what my job was, I would have answered -torturer. Because believe it or not, that feels like what I’ve been all day.
The day got off to a bad start as soon as I got my schedule. The first thing I notice is that my first visit that should have been at 8.30 was at 7.15, the next thing was my second visit that should have been at 9.30 was at 7.45 and that my third visit that should have been at 10.00 was at 8.30. The rest of the visits went on pretty much the same. This means that no one was very pleased to see me that morning.
The first man was not very happy to be woken up so early and wanted to go back to sleep. He has a problem with falling asleep and often spend his nights staring at the ceiling. So understandably he doesn’t want to get up just after seven in the morning when he fell asleep around five. He tells me that he doesn’t want any help and that he’s fine. I tell him to get up, eat breakfast and take his medicine. He tells me he will do it later. I tell him to get up. In the end, I win but it’s not a sweet victory.
The second visit is an old woman who switches between being the happiest person on earth to the saddest in seconds and back again, over and over again. She is not happy to see me so early in the morning. She wants to go back to sleep so that she can die. I tell her to get up and get into the shower. She curses me out and then moves on to cursing god for killing her only child. I tell her to get up because she wet the bed and she needs to shower. She starts crying, denying that the bed is wet and that she has never asked for my help and that I should leave. I force her into the shower. If anyone had been standing outside the bathroom door they would have believed that I was killing her in there for the amount of crying/begging/screaming she did.
The third visit is one of my favorite old women, someone I really don’t want to be even close to mean to. She just wants help with her socks and to go back to sleep. I tell her to get up. She does but it feels like a knife to the chest.
I have a colleague with me for the fourth visit, a pretty sick old woman who really should be in a home instead of living at home. She wants to keep sleeping but luckily she likes us and doesn’t protest when we pull the cover off her and start helping her up. This is where everything goes wrong. One of her feet hurts. We know it, we can do nothing about it. She puts her feet on the floor, her hands on her walker and we help her up. She screams in pain and she wants to sit back down. I tell her she needs to stay on her feet. She’s crying in pain. I tell her to walk. She tells me that it feels like fire under her feet and that she’s going to fall. Even knowing how terrified she is of falling, I tell her she needs to walk forward, away from the bed. She tells me she can’t. I tell her to walk. This goes on for almost an hour and a half before we get her into the wheelchair.
The fifth visit is the first one who doesn’t think I’m there too early, mainly because I’m now almost an hour late. This man is the same man who I mentioned in the last post. He’s in a happy mood, sitting in his armchair watching football. He doesn’t want any help but if I could make him some hot chocolate that would be nice of me. I tell him to get up and get into the bathroom so that I can clean him up. He tells me he can do it himself. I tell him to get up. He tells me his lungs hurt and he doesn’t want to get up right now. I tell him to get up. He tells me he doesn’t want to. I tell him to get up. This goes on until he does. It’s easy to see that whoever was there that morning didn’t do their job properly. He tells me he’s cold and that he wants to sit back down. I tell him to stand and take his clothes off. He tells me he’s too tired. I tell him that he has to keep standing. He tells me that it hurts when I clean him. I tell him that the pressure wounds on his hip are bleeding and covered in shit and that I need to keep cleaning. He tells me he can’t go on. I tell him he has to. This goes on until he’s clean, had his clothes changed and his chair cleaned and disinfected.
This leaves me with ten minutes left of my lunch break.
The first visit after lunch is to a woman who gives one of my colleagues a stomach ache just from thinking of her. I have the key to her door but I really don’t want to use it. I ring the door bell. She doesn’t answer the door. I ring the doorbell. She doesn’t answer the door. I call her phone. She hangs up. I ring the door bell. She doesn’t answer. This goes on for almost ten minutes before I reluctantly unlock the door. I don’t get further then that because she has tied a rope to the door handle. She shows up in the hallway, pissed off as hell. She’s angry that random people have her key and dare to walk in and out of her home against her wishes. She is not happy to have me there. I lie like a mother fucker, not a word of truth passes my lips for the next fifteen minutes. By the end I’ve gotten her medicine down her throat and she thinks I’m her friend. She will know I’m not by the time I’ve called her daughter and told her about the rope.
Thankfully the rest of the day got better from there. I got a couple of visit canceled and spend the rest of my time with that favorite old woman of mine, eating cookies and playing cards.
Unfortunately it doesn’t weigh up the mind numbing suffering I’ve put people through today because I had to. This is what happens when three people are sick and the original schedule planner is on vacation.
Urg, I need some tea and a foot massage.