I Love My Job

[Granny]

I really do. As some of you might know already, I do in-home companion care for elderly people. It isn't all cleaning up puke and shit. There are a lot of rewards to be had. I can look at these people who have dementia and Alzheimer's or who are just plain old and want to stay in their homes and die there ... and I can thank God for being so blessed with the good health I have. They ask for so little and, in their own way, give so much back.

I've been taking care of this one little 96 year old lady for a good while now and she has been an absolute hoot. I just love her. She's a plain old down to earth mountain girl. I've listened to some of her stories of her more youthful years ... and members of her family have verified the stories are true, so this little lady was something else!! She couldn't have children but adopted a child from an orphanage. I kind of like the story of the day her mother came to her house and asked why in the world she had all that laundry hanging all over the place - her reply was, "I want everybody to know I've got me a boy!" Her house was neat as a pin and she knew exactly where everything was.

She took a fall recently and broke her arm so that meant she had to have 24/7 care until she could be put in an assisted living place to undergo therapy. She has a hell of a way of putting things sometimes and doesn't mind speaking her mind! So one morning at the breakfast table she looked at me and said, "That little girl that stays with me [in her early 20s] is real sweet but, you know, she couldn't get her finger up her ass if she was using both hands."

I miss my little old lady and I've been trying for the last week to get over to see her but something always comes up. Right now I'm just standing in for other caregivers until a full-time situation comes up.

So, last week I had a fill in for four days on a 9:30 - 1:30 schedule ... and I have never in my life checked my watch so many times in a four hour period. I thought those days would never end. I promise you I bit my tongue and "ma'amed" my way throughout the entire ordeal (and rolled my eyes when no one was looking).

This woman was a prima donna if ever there was one - couldn't do a damned thing for herself. Her husband may have loved her with all his heart but I figured out the first day why he stayed in his room all day with the door shut. They were very well educated - I don't know what she did other than write poems but he was a retired nuclear physicist. Very nice big house ... that had not been touched since they day they bought it. Crap all over the place; walls and curtains, etc. that were in dire need of a fix - well, never mind.

She wanted me to help her get her bra on (which is not an unusual thing when you sometimes have to help some of these elderly people get dressed). "Don't touch me!!!" she yells - well what the fuck just happened here I ask myself. This woman has bazoomas the size of Dixie melons and she's trying to stuff them into bra cups about the size of a cantelope ... fine. I won't touch you. Just the slightest touch brings on an "Ow!" but she has to have a feet rubbed with lotion and her toes rubbed with Vasoline and I shouldn't get them mixed together. Fine.

"You can bring [this, this and this] for lunch and you can count out 8 grapes for each of us - don't forget to was the grapes." Eight grapes apiece, huh? Ohhhh-kay. Got it.

"So, now I'm going to wash my eyes and brush my teeth. You can hand me the cotton balls." The damned cotton balls are right there, but OK. "Okay, now you can put this cotton ball in the trash and hand me another one." The trash can is right there - but I've got to take her eye disease infected cotton balls and drop them in the trash for her.

"You can take off my bathrobe now." Really. Who put it on you - because I know you and your husband sleep in different bedrooms - you've got the California king and he's got the twin size across the hall. I make both of them up.

At the end of these hellish four days when I turned in my time sheet I told my boss that if she were to pay me even $50/hour I would not go back to that house. She said she'd already had 4 other people refuse to go back and that one of them had walked out in tears.

I now officially HATE the word "entitled."

 

[Noomi]

Some people just make you want to strangle them. Some people just like to take advantage of those who are there to help, and expect you to act like their slave.
Good on you for not going back.

 

[Granny]

Thanks! In a way, you also made a pretty good political statement there!

Right after posting that, I did exactly what I'd been wanting to do all week and couldn't because of somebody else's wants/needs or whatever. I got up off my sorry ass, got dressed, and went to the assisted living facility to visit my little lady who I loved so much. When she saw me come in her eyes got all welled up, gave a great big smile and she was so glad to see me. I felt like a million dollars! I checked out the manicure I had given her a week earlier and that was still in good shape. I took a look at her therapy chart and she's scheduled 5 days a week, which she would not have been getting in a home setting and she's doing good with her therapy. She was just so happy to see me. She asked me to get her earrings for her and she put on a little makeup. We just had a great visit together.

Nobody had checked her toes out and nobody had massaged her legs with lotion so I worked on her legs a little bit with lotion - but that's the kind of stuff we could do for her at home on a one-on-one basis. I did tell her she had no idea how many times I had said I love her over the past week and that if she had seen the kitchen I was dealing with every morning she would have taken a butcher's knife to somebody!! lol I learned this little thing from her - I'm probably like most people - when I'm finished with my dishes, I wipe out the sink and walk off. She always took a piece of paper towel and dried the sink - and she was right - her kitchen sink always had that "finished" look to it.

I walked away happy. I still need to clean my house that I was going to do on my day off, but what the hell - I'm only working two days this week and that will give me plenty of time to get more of that "spring cleaning" type cleaning done. That takes a little more time than normal everyday cleaning.

 

[Geaux4it]

Once we all get there we will need someone, albeit family or in home care.

In other words, we need people such as yourself.

Positive rep coming your way

-Geaux

 

[Granny]

Thank you! I consider myself very fortunate. Working with dementia and Alzheimer's people can give one a whole new outlook on life. These are diseases that respect no one and they just keep marching onward. There is no cure.