It's Medical Monday ~ CNA's Brighten Days

Today is the first Monday of July, which means it is Medical Monday around these parts!

I am happy to be co-hosting this month's Medical Mondays Blog Hop.

For those of you who are new here, I am a CNA, and for anyone who doesn't know what that is, I thought I would explain.

CNA stands for Certified Nursing Assistant.  Our duties vary depending on what job we take.  I used to do home health care, which I love.  Many CNA's work in nursing homes.  I currently work in a hospital on the neuro med/surg floor.  If you've ever spent time in a hospital, you've encountered a CNA, although different facilities use different job titles.

At my hospital, we are called Nurse Techs.  We take vitals, assist patients with various needs, answer your call light, bring you food and drinks (other than your actual meals).  I often feel like a waitress, counselor, and medical professional all rolled into one.  I could never list every one of my duties because there are so many and they vary greatly from day to day, week to week.  I run my butt off, I will say that!  I work hard for 12 hours, 3 days a week and it wears me out.  But I love it - most days!

We appreciate all our Medical Monday participants! You all have helped us develop a fantastic community of friendship and support! Next month we will be celebrating MM one year anniversary! Be sure to mark it on your calendar. Along with our regular link up party, we will have a giveaway which is sure to please! 

On to this month's party!!!.....

Are you confused if you qualify for the party?

If you have a pager interrupting your life... you DEFINITELY qualify!
Do you work in healthcare?

Doctor? Nurse? EMT? Chiropractor? Vet? Dentist? Therapist?

MA? NA? PA? DA?

Are you the spouse or SO of a healthcare worker/student?

Are you a nursing student? Medical student?

Intern? Resident? Fellow?

You get the picture, right? Come on, now... don't be shy! Let's keep growing and meeting new bloggers, so we can build a community of support and friendship, learn from one another, and share our stories.

LINK UP YOUR POST!

Here are the rules:

1. Follow your co-hosts via Bloglovin (since GFC will soon be defunct), FB, email or Twitter.
2. Link up you medical/med life blog. If your blog name does not clearly state how you fit in to the med/med life world, please write a little intro or link up a specific post which clearly demonstrates your connection.
3. Visit at least 3 other link ups, comment, introduce yourself, and tell the your stopping by or following from MM!
4. Help spread the word by using our button on your post or sidebar, tweet about Medical Monday, or spread the word on Facebook! The more the merrier for all of us.

Complete step one by following your co-hosts:

• Emma at Your Doctor's Wife
• Jane at From A Doctor's Wife
• Heather at Army Wife, Army Life
• Cyndy at Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional

Want to be awesome?
Post our button on you post or sidebar and help spread the word:

<a href="http://www.yourdoctorswife.com/p/medical-mondays.html" target="blank"> <img src="http://i1168.photobucket.com/albums/r494/fromadoctorswife/MedicalMonday-001edit125x125.jpg"/> </a>

Want to co-host next month? Shoot Emma an email at yourdoctorswife@gmail.com and be sure to write "Medical Monday Co-host Request" in the subject field.

Now, link up below and have fun! The link up is open through Friday, so be sure to come back during the week to check some great reads!

10 Things of Thankful

It's time to be thankful again!

1. I am thankful that my Mama made chocolate delight for my husband's birthday dessert, because I am enjoying the leftovers right now.  Mmm-mmm, good!

2. I am thankful that my whole family and hubby's whole family got together Friday night to celebrate his birthday.  We had a great time!

3. I am thankful for one friend who is doing something fantastic for my extended family.  I will elaborate on that later.  ;-)

4. I am thankful for HOT showers.  Most days I just jump in and jump out with little thought.  But have you ever had one of those showers that just feels amazing?  The other day, I woke up sore and crampy and crabby.  I was hurting and stiff and had sheet-wrinkles all over me.  I stumbled into a hot shower and came out feeling a million times better.  Thank you, Hot Shower.

5. Thankful for Tums, because my tummy is currently not very happy about my late night snacking as mentioned in #1.

6. I am thankful for modern technology.  I ordered a frame for my dad for Fathers Day; it's a wooden frame that says We <3 Papa and then has my kids' names all over it.  It's really cool.  Anyway, yesterday at Byron's mom's house, I took a picture of my dad with my three kids and then was able to print it right there at his mom's house with her printer (I brought my own photo paper so I was only mooching her ink).  I just LOVE that we are able to do that; I was born in the 1970's so I am old enough that modern technology really amazes me.

7. I am thankful for these sweet boys.  They were very closely watching me eat breakfast.  They don't beg, they just watch.  Very intently.  And Patchy, the one in the back?  He drools.

8. I am thankful that I was able to un-clog our vacuum cleaner with a wire hanger and a lot of hard work.  Because I am Superwoman!  And this Superwoman likes a clean floor.

9. I am thankful for Summer.  It's my favorite.

10. I am thankful that I am co-hosting Medical Mondays in two days!!  Be sure and come back to visit!

Medical Monday (on Wednesday) - What NOT to do.

(Because, Ooops.  That's why.)

New here?  I am a Nurse Tech on the Med/Surg floor of a hospital.

Today I have for you FIVE things that you should NOT do while either you, or your loved one, has been admitted as a patient in a hospital.

1. Do NOT bring your very young child to the hospital to stay with his or her dad.  Who is very ill.  FOR THE ENTIRE NIGHT.  While you go home to sleep.

2. Do NOT let your baby crawl on the hospital floor.  OMG. Please.  For the love of all that is clean and free of bacteria.  AND COOTIES.

3. Do NOT sneak into the bathroom of your hospital room and smoke cigarettes.

4. Do NOT sneak off of the floor, out of the hospital, and into the parking lot next door to smoke cigarettes. With your IV pole and various other medical equipment.

5. If you choose to do that, do NOT tell us, when you get back, that your pain level is a 10.


I have a feeling these "What NOT to do" posts may become a recurring theme.  Stay tuned!

Medical Mondays - What I Do.

My first husband's current wife (my children's stepmother) likes to refer to my occupation as "ass-wiper".
Charming, isn't she?  She's also going to school to be a NURSE.  Shudder.

Anyway.  I am a Nurse Tech, or Nursing Assistant, on the Med/Surg floor of a hospital.
When my husband told his nurse friend what I do for a living, his friend immediately said "She works HARD for her money." And I certainly do.

I have so many different duties and responsibilities in my job that neither of you nor I have time for me to list them all.  And no two nights are ever the same.  But I have never made a secret of the fact that one of my job duties is to help clean incontinent patients.  (I refuse to call it "wiping ass", that is SO disrespectful to my patients.)

I also take vital signs, making me the first line of defense to detect if a patient is having any issues.  I am an important link in a chain of health care professionals.
I perform blood glucose tests.  I hook up telemetry monitors.  I connect oxygen tubing.   I attach sequential compression devices.  I do portable bladder ultrasounds.
Last week I assisted a nurse with an enema and impaction removal.  Yep - that's a NURSE JOB.

Some nights I feel like a waitress.  Some nights I feel like a therapist.
Some nights I have zero incontinent patients.
Some nights I have three.
But when I think of the comments from ignorant, disrespectful people, it makes me angry.  Not for myself - certainly I couldn't care less what someone like that thinks of me.

But I picture my incontinent patients.  Usually frail, elderly people.  They are helpless and unable to clean themselves.  They are embarrassed and uncomfortable in every way.  They never asked to be in that position.  They deserve someone who respects them, and cares enough to clean them up immediately, quickly yet thoroughly, and in a professional manner, while allowing them to maintain their dignity.

A few weeks ago I had a sweet elderly lady as one of my patients.  She tried to make it to the bathroom to void her bladder, but she didn't make it in time.  She was so humiliated.  She said that was the first time in her life it had ever happened.  I helped her clean up, changed her sheets, all the while smiling and chatting with her.  She still kept apologizing and was so ashamed, she was literally in tears.  I finally took her by the hand and said, "Please, stop apologizing.  It happens.  If you were feeling well, you wouldn't be in the hospital.  I have cleaned up FAR worse than this.  It's part of my job.  I don't mind at all." And she said to me, "You are a wonderful person.  There is a special place in heaven for you."

And I hear that all the time.  "Thank you.  You are so sweet.  Thank you for taking such good care of me."   It makes it all worthwhile.

And anyone who refers to that as "ass-wiping" deserves NOT to have a compassionate person to take care of them when they find themselves in the unfortunate position of being helpless and incontinent.  They deserve to sit in it for a while.

Not everyone can handle my job - I get that.  But I can and I do, and I do it quite well.
Oh and one last thing - if you are a nurse and you have NEVER cleaned up an incontinent patient, PLEASE leave me a comment.  I would love to know how you managed to escape a job that every single nurse on the planet does.

Go visit Your Doctor's Wife for more Medical Monday posts.
P.S.  It's Nurse's Week!  Hug your favorite Nursing Professional!

Medical Monday - Rough Days

That sums it up pretty well.

Being a night shifter, I also get to wake people up in the wee hours of the morning, often when they've 'just fallen asleep' (or at least, it feels that way) to take their blood pressure or check their blood sugar.
In case you're new here - I'm a Nurse Tech at a hospital (a.k.a. Nursing Assistant).
I work on a Med/Surg floor; we get a lot of stroke and back/neck surgery patients.

I get to help people into the bathroom when I've been trying to get to the bathroom myself for the past hour but haven't had time.  (cross your legs and pray you don't sneeze.....)

For the most part, my patients are nice and understanding.  Especially considering that almost NOBODY is at their best when they are a patient in a hospital.

But you do get the others....patients who think that "H" on the sign stands for HILTON instead of HOSPITAL.  They expect you to do anything they ask, immediately after they ask for it.  There's no consideration for the fact that you have other patients (sometimes the nurses forget this part too....).  They want you to cater to them.
And we try - we really do. And if you're lucky you can win them over or at the very least, appease them and get them to sleep.
There are many benefits to night shift. 

There are drawbacks too though - and already I've realized that even though I last worked night shifts only two years ago, I'm not as young as I used to be and they're harder on me than they were.  I work three nights in a row and then I'm off for four, but my sleep schedule never really goes back to 'normal' on my off days.  It did before, but not any more!  I either stay up way late, or wake up at the crack of dawn.

There's very little that 'grosses me out', I've become pretty accustomed to things that some people find stomach-turning.  The other night I was emptying a device called a Hemovac which drains blood & other fluids from a wound.  I noticed the patient's teenage daughter out of the corner of my eye and looked up.  She looked positively GREEN.  She said "OH EM GEE that is SO nasty!"  Her mom said she used to want to be a nurse but after seeing her dad go through surgery, she wasn't so sure any more.

I love working in health care - but that doesn't mean that it's easy.  And just like any job, there are good days and bad days.  That's one thing I love about working three 12 hour shifts in a row then being off for four - on rough nights, I can always tell myself "just 2 more nights" and then "just one more night" and then "tonight is my Friday".....

*Sorry this post is a little scattered; I'm exhausted and have to get up early tomorrow morning for the funeral. Forgive me!*

Medical Monday Blog Hop

I'm not usually much of a hopper, but I just couldn't resist this one.
I recently started reading Your Doctor's Wife.  It's a great blog and her header is one of the coolest I have EVER seen.  For real.

Anyway, I couldn't resist this blog hop because it's a Medical Monday hop.  Not only I am in the health care profession, but today makes one year that I've been caring for my main client.
I absolutely love what I do.  If you're new here, I do home health care. I'm a CNA - Certified Nursing Assistant.  I work for an agency but since I started, have had one main client.

The type of work I do is very hands on.  Very personal.  I help my clients with any aspect of their daily lives that they need help with.  Some of the things I help with are dressing, taking medications, and going to appointments.  I cook their meals.  I see them at their worst and their best.
My main client gets 24 hour care.  She can do very little for herself.  I help her with any and everything.  I have met all of her children and most of her grandchildren.  I have bonded with my client and her family.  I spend so much time at her home, it's like a second home to me.

Sidenote: All of my clients thus far have been continent (meaning they need little to no help using the restroom).  This has been a blessing.  I can and will do whatever I need to do, but I won't lie and say I'm not glad that I don't have to deal with a lot of....ummmm....waste products!

My philosophy is that I treat my clients the way I would want my parents to be treated.  I am respectful and caring and warm.  I do my best to help them maintain their dignity in a time where that can be a challenge.  I speak to them with kindness, never talking down to them.  I don't give orders, I make requests.  I ask their opinion instead of making choices for them regarding things like meals and clothing.  I wouldn't work in an environment where other caregivers did not treat their clients respectfully; I simply couldn't tolerate it.

I have loved senior citizens for as long as I can remember.  I first felt called to do this type of work several years ago.  Two years ago I finally took the plunge and did it.  And I love it.  I've never had a job that I loved this much, that was this rewarding and fulfilling.  I feel appreciated and valued.  I don't dread going to work.  I think I've only missed work once this entire year and it was totally inevitable (and with the insanity I've been through this year, that's saying a LOT).  This agency has been good to me and I appreciate them.  When I first started, along with my main client I also cared for the company owner's grandmother until she passed away.  I adored her and every time I left, she told me she loved me and gave me a hug.  I miss her dearly.

It's a unique job.  It has its challenges but the rewards are great.
I've worked in health care for over six years now and I can't imagine doing anything else, although I do plan to advance in this field.  (I worked as a tech in a hospital for four years and did home health care independently for a year after that.)
I am not certain what the future holds; I have goals, hopes and dreams. But I know the health care field is where my heart is, and where I'll always be!