Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in octogenophile's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, February 10th, 2008
11:42 am	Mentor Even though he is a little short, Santiago still reads as a large and grizzly old man. He's got the kind of jowls that old men should have and his voice comes out like a torrent of rusty nails; always several decibels too loud. His words themselves are not slurred, but a little softened around the edges, and they ramble all over the 4 corners of the universe. He is extremely hard of hearing, almost completely deaf really. I walk into his room at the beginning of the shift to say, "hello, i am your nurse tonight, blah blah blah." He launches into his first speech of the day, like a freight train full of old plumbing parts. "I CANNOT HEAR VERY WELL. YOU CAN TALK TO ME WITH PEN AND PAPER, IN ENGLISH OR ESPANISH". and on to talk about how he did not sleep well and they gave him too many pills last night and some other things which he repeats 4 or 5 times a piece. I ask him, on paper "How do you feel?" and he goes into a lengthy speech, half of which i can understand, beginning with "well, i come from the texas side of mexico so i am a citizen," and launching into entire history of life and illness, including something about the problems the night before with the nurse giving him too many pills. ( because this is almost as long as one of Santiago's speeches ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
1:49 am	fruitcake, literally God i hate christmas. but some times the patients salvage it for me a little. Jean said "I've already drank 15 quarts of eggnog this year. You should really try the eggnog from the (local supermarket), you'd Love it". and then, of course, every night at dinner she talks about how she has to lose all those eggnog pounds. Then she started talking about fruit cakes. "I made the best fruit Cakes a few years ago," she said, "rose so well, and i just slathered them in Brandy. Then i gave a bunch of them to the convent. The sisters said, 'that was the best fruit cake we ever had!' They probably got soused on them". (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
1:48 pm	Speaking of Refusing another nurse freind of mine got me thinking about the phenomenon of patients who refuse care. As a matter of fact, in the last few weeks, i had a patient who was a real extreme case of refusal. And, as you might guess, refusal is a really big thing on a psych unit. Cindy, we'll call her, had been in and out of psych facilities for almost as long as my mother has been alive and, over this time, had developed a very intense mistrust of health care providers. And, as i was told by her daughter, her mistrust often extended to family members and anyone else who ever tried to be a part of her care and/or medical decisions. So, it was sort of double pronged. On the one hand she seemed to be extremely paranoid as part of her mental illness, to the degree that she had burned most every bridge and bit most every hand she'd ever had access too. On the other hand, who knows what kinds of treatments she was coerced or forced to recieve 50, 40, 30 years ago on up. She probably has some good reasons for mistrustfulness, and who can really blame someone for asserting their rights to not recieve every bit of psychiatric care ever offered them. She had not signed herself in to our facility -- she had assaulted caregivers, and in fact had a history of violence towards other people, and therefore some of her rights were revoked. Extra extra complicated. Still, once in the hospital, if someone refuses, day in and day out, to take their antipsychotics, a doctor or nurse can't force them to take it. Unless they are actively doing something dangerous to themselves or other people. So, you can take control of a situation on a crisis management level, but a person always has the right to reduce their plan of care to a series of crisis management episodes rather than a situation where thier behavioral symptoms are managed with some level of consistency. I do ultimately think that is the right thing -- people still have the right to make their decisions about their health. Also, if someone is swinging at people and creating a threatening environment, even though it sucks and is problematic, it has to be managed -- and an IM injection is as valid a form of self defense as anything else in that situation. When someone comes up with something better, i'm all for it to be sure. But, it's fucking hard to watch and be around. And it can really reduce my job to something i don't like so much. Every day i would offer this woman her meds, and every day she would get pissed off and say really nasty things. And i would say "you have the right to refuse, but i also have the right to keep telling you what the doctor has prescribed and to offer you information about why etc. etc." And everyday we would reschedule the labs and the X-rays and the Ultrasounds and all that business. And everyday she would yell at the technicians and say "I don't want anything put in me or taken out." and we would say "it's just a test. It's non-invasive" etc. etc. And i would drop it all very quickly and do my best to keep her right to refusal on the forefront while also attempting to be a thorough and un-lazy nurse who fully attempts to do everything i can to administer appropriate interventions with my patients. Eventually she was discharged with the "we can't do anything for her because she won't participate in care" byline. She was far to saavy to be tricked or swayed, and far to paranoid to be reasoned with. Sometimes it's painful to know that's the best you can do. Also, painful to realize how inevitable that situation is is a system with such a long history or coercion and bad treatment options for mental illness. Ugh, this topic could go on for volumes, but i'm gonne leave off here for now. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
12:13 am	Rita and Clemmon Rita is an amazing dresser at age 92, at least by my standards. She has these little slipper flats comepletely bejeweled with seventeen different colors of sparkly things. One of them always has the back crushed under her heel. under the flats she wears a sock on each foot. One sock is a normal brown sock. The other is a grey hospital terry cloth footie sock put on wrong so the nonskid material peeks out of the flat on the top of her foot. She wears this fancy cowgirl shirt most days, and often she wears it inside out. Which works, you know. and, in her grey curly hair she always wears 9 different barretes. Three of them are gold with sparkles. Three are clear fancy plastic comblike ones. one is a plain metal one. and two are kids blue plastic barettes with the little sparkly flowers on the end. they are rows on different parts of her head. ( wait, it gets better ) Current Mood: amused (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, July 2nd, 2007
12:10 am	superstitious nurses ok, this weekend at work has been fucking wacky ass crazy. The mileu has been easily upset; we have an ubelievable number of really loud and or really agressive patients. We have a couple of really confused really non-directible ladies whom need nearly constant one on one attention. Needless to say, i have been the nurse for both of those ladies this weekend. My head is mush from listening to constant stream of conscious talking with or without incessant and painful wrist grabbing. I have spent countless hours Running running running to keep after them because neither of them can stay sitting down for more than 5 minutes at a time (i kid you not!) (I lie. Not countless hours, but 24 hours, actually 27.5 hours to be exact). And all of this while having to run to the aid of other nurses so we can do 4 person assists on big men who are screaming their deluded heads off and trying to kill us as we try to swaddle their big naked bodies with gowns and depends. oy oy oy. I was talking with my hippie coop nursing school roomates earlier today about the full moon and its effects on my work. My one roomate said "yeah, isn't it funny too how even mainstream type nurses often believe in the full moon cause they see the patients consistently lose their shit month after month after month?" And i realized she was so right. All these really normal level headed non-superstitious nurse types often say "ugh, it's the full moon!" I think that's kind of cool. On the down side, since a lot of nurses work on every-other week schedules that means we are on 28 day shedules much like the full moon, so those who work on the full moon are very likely to always work on the full moon. Needless to say, i always work the weekend proximal to the full moon! No wonder my coworker who i work the same weekend with always says "oh, we always work these CRAZY weekends". Hah, well, it's over -- for 28 days at least. Now for two days off! yeah!!!!!! Current Mood: exhausted Current Music: joan armatrading (don't laugh) (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 30th, 2007
12:28 am	Glimmer Girl Marie is one of the most amazing surrealist poets i have ever met. She is well into alzheimers dementia and quite a lot of work to take care of, but she constantly emits the most incredible partially-intelligible stream of consciousness i've ever heard. Constantly (while awake, and she rarely sleeps). I can't really do her "poetry" justice in writing; you kind of just have to hear it in person. The other night she did a 30 minute monologue about Darkness (while she was alone in her dark room -- i listened from the doorway) which was quite incredible. "It's the Dark. The Dark. The Darkness is when there is no light. It is the Dark and if you don't know darkness, well i'm just through with you. The Darkness is the Darkness. It's just Dark". Really, 30 minutes, all in this calm, low, monotone drawl. I sat there and charted the whole time, my jaw dropped open in sheer amazement. Today in the middle of some other tangent, Marie looked at me and said "Glimmer Girl. I think I'll call you Glimmer Girl. Cause you are my Glimmer girl. and everyone else will look at me and think i'm crazy. But then when they look at you they will know why i call you Glimmer Girl. Cause you are the Glimmer Girl." Whooo, I think i got a new nickname out of the deal. I could do worse than that. Current Mood: Inspired (Comment on this)
12:21 am	The Family Way Mrs. Goldberg was a bit needy the other night, but the thing she kept repeating to me over and over was "I need you to meet my son. Tell me you will meet my son. When will you be here tomorrow? You have to meet my son." Now, i had just met her son an hour before this line of questioning started, but she apparently didn't remember this. A few hours into it i finally said to her, "Now Mrs. Golberg, you aren't playing matchmaker, are you?" She gave me a sly grin and said "Maybe" in total sing song, and then "are you married?" And the rest of the night she would periodically hug me and say things like "you would like us!" and "You would treat him good, i can tell." Oh lord. And, no, from having met the guy once, i'm not particularly drawn to him (never mind that he's at least 15 years older than me". Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
11:58 pm	Fixed False Beliefs When i first saw Lawrence, he was clutching his briefcase and explaining that there was a mistake and he needed the doors unlocked so he could leave. There was something about him which drew me, which filled me with a sense of familiarity. Oh my god, i thought, when i heard his usage of language ("$10 words" doesn't even touch it), was he a professor?. There he was with his outdated trousers, walking about with that special type of slouch, squinting his eyes behind his thick glasses, oozing neurosis out his very pores. Nope, turns out, he was a librarian. A very important one, were you to ask him. He pioneered important catalogueing innovations as part of a very elite team of very brilliant librarians. He flew all over the world to work with the most famous librarians that ever there were. Very successful librarians who owned very expensive cars and lived in very classy establishments. Librarians more famous than Dewey Decimal. ( click here for the rest of the heartbreaking, and sometimes conspiratorial, tale ) (Comment on this)
1:03 am	'joan' "Joan" is so incredibly lovely. I've been working on a poem for her, but it's hard. It's all about how when she talks it is like the finest surrealist poetry imaginable. "your logical intonation betraying a web of connections anyone else would call 'nonsense'". When she showed up this last time she had a black eye and slept through that first entire evening, her head fallen back in the big fluffy chair. Every time i looked in her direction, it broke my little heart. She had fallen, but nobody would have been surprised if she'd gotten into a fight. 85 years old with her long proper words and all, that lady will stand up and go for it if she thinks she's being attacked. And, she frequently thinks she's being attacked. By the same person she thought was her best friend 5 minutes earlier. Me and another nurse were helping her undress for bed and her affect switched very suddenly and she said "Hold on You Freaky Deaky" and started swinging. She often tells me in no uncertain terms, once i've tucked her into bed, "Oh No, I want to sleep alone", thinking i'm about to climb into bed with her. A post bedtime conversation about 'Joan' gets a lot of discussion; all the staff have a little bit of a thing for her. Her long graceful words, her quickness to fight, her purported throwing dishes at family members, her cooing at the floor and singing "here puppy puppy", her long (as in hours) even toned conversations with nobody in particular. We argue about whether she's Alzheimers or just Dementia, about whether or not her medications actually make her worse, about whether she is the hardest patient to take care of or the easiest. Then again, 'Joan' is one thing we all agree on. There we are, united by our love for and fascination with this woman whose mental status eludes anyone she meets. Sure enough, the patients we are most likely to agree on are the ones who stir up the most trouble. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
11:20 pm	Mean Lady Deb is the meanest patient you could ever hope for. She sits in her chair and throws insults at everyone who walks by. "You Assholes! Get out of my face. Bastards! What's Wrong With You? Get Away from me you stupid shits! Idiots" All day long. Nothing too crazy, but all these mean curse words in her flat white lady accent; there's something sort of off and amusing about it. She's pretty disoriented, but her speech is really unimpaired and she looks fairly put together, so you don't expect it at first. Also, her vision and reading abilities are completely intact. Today we were watching the Pussycat Lounge show on TV in the activity room(don't ask me why). Deb sat there in her chair the whole time and kept reading "Pussy cat lounge", which was written all over the stage where the show was filmed, in her flat white lady voice. over and over and over. Occasionally she would comment "That lady is not wearing many clothes" "the lady is gone" "pussycat lounge". Then someone would walk near her and she would say, "what's wrong with you. You Asshole". It was sort of surreal. Then Lou walked by and his pants sort of fell down and this round serious faced man is stooping over next to deb trying to pull up his pants while she is intoning "Pussy Cat Lounge" "Asshole". Moments like that, you have to think "oh my god, this is such better reality than what's coming off the tube!" Lou is also very confused but very verbose and can walk extremely well. When Deb wears her glasses, Lou confuses her for his wife, Marge. He walks over to her and talks to her and tries to help her out of her chair quite a bit. Lou said to a nurse tonight, "I need to speak to someone; i am very concerned; i need to find out what they did to marge to make her so bitchy. Normally she is such a nice lady; i don't know what happened!" Now we sometimes refer to Deb as "PsuedoMarge". Reality TV, i tell you. Too bad about Hippa. (i don't really mean that, i respect patient privacy enough to doctor my stories etc., by the way. Any laws which protect patient privacy can't be all bad) Current Mood: amused Current Music: Brian Eno "Third Uncle" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
1:28 am	Knee Kisser I walked into Walter's room today and he was lying on his back curled up and kissing his knees, one after the other. I asked him "who are you kissing, Walter?" and he said "MYSELF!" I made some comment about self love, i think. Hours later, he was doing it again. I said "Walter, why do you kiss your knees? Is there a reason, or is it just a habit you get into." "Hmmmmm," he said "maybe just a habit i get into." He kept kissing his knees. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 17th, 2007
1:31 am	boundary crossing There has been a lot of talk among the nurses at my facility about a particular situation. A particular patient has a very attentive caregiver who comes everyday whom, it turns out, is also her lover. They are very demonstrative, and he is very micromanagerial and a little odd and inconsistent about her care. That alone isn't terribly odd at all. But, we realized, he met her while she was in a facility and has been her paid caregiver for most of the time since. It brings up a very complicated set of questions, which i can't answer in this particular instance because i don't know all the details of their arrangement. Was he her friend andd lover first and then her caregiver?, for instance. I don't know. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: perplexed (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 8th, 2006
3:17 am	sacred? I've provided care for one nun and one priest during my (short) career in nursing. I'm definitely NOT catholic, but it is, nonetheless, a little odd feeling to put suppositories up the rear end of a person of the cloth. I wonder, as I do what it is that I do, how many other people have seen them naked. And how unerving is it for a person of that lifestyle to have to be in a situation where people (possibly even of the opposite sex) have to touch them. It's a reminder of the odd, scary, and sometimes awesome priveleges (and responsibilities) which health care providers, especially nurses, are given. It's ok for me to relate to this person with an unspeakable lack of privacy because of this uniform or this badge i wear. I have this role, so, theoretically, i am safe space. This fact is still so funny to me, because even though i am very respectful and have a better than average handle on the concept of consent, my leanings and personal histories are percieved by society in such a way that would mark me as particularly untrustworthy in these types of compromising situations. I guess it's nice to have the chance to prove my self as the respectful person i know myself to be. Current Mood: embarrassed Current Music: Organ (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 19th, 2006
11:40 pm	very friendly doctor well, while i'm posting about docs, i might as well dredge up the story about the opthamologist. Many months ago, I was working one night and had noticed earlier that day my eyelid was fucked up -- maybe a sty or pinkeye or and infection, i wasn't sure. The Opthomologist showed up (a rare-ish thing) to do patient consults. He immediately started making eyes at me and commenting on my cute yellow outfit. After his consults were done he came and stood a little too close to me and started chatting me up really pretty inappropriately. "if you ever need an eye doctor. . . " he said (practically sitting in my lap). Debating how far i wanted to get myself into this (and noting to myself that my insurance hadn't kicked in yet) I bit the bullet and said "well, actually I think i might have a sty in my left eye". Of course he lit up, thinking i was totally making it up to flirt with him (ugh) and he lunged toward me, took my head in his hands, and began inspecting my eye (expecting to find nothing, i'm sure, but a flirty little nurse). In about three seconds he said "Oh! You weren't kidding! You really do have a sty!" He looked at it a little more closely with a more professional eye and gave me his professional opinion (which was that it was not infected and that i could probably solve it with compresses -- which was correct). After he left i felt a little creepy but mostly just shocked at the uncanny timing of it all. After all, i've paid my rent by shaking my ass plenty of times, what's a free opthamologist consult for a few well placed bats of my pus-oozing eyelids? Current Mood: amused Current Music: frightwig (Comment on this)
11:22 pm	friendly doctor I love working the weekends, even though i don't do it more than i have to on account of the lure of a social life. But i worked morning shifts all this past weekend, and was glad for it. Everything is sort of in alternate-universe mode. Fewer meddling supervisors, more family members visiting; some weekends the ladies' group throws events for the residents which usually involve lots of fancy hats. I love that shit. This weekend it was more mundane than that, but when you work in healthcare, mundane is good! The craziest thing that happened this weekend was me having a super positive interaction with a doctor i commonly work with. I knew something was off when i answered the page to pick up his call and couldn't get him off the phone for his chatty banter. After 1.5 years, i've never got more than a hasty attempt to get me off the phone as quick as possible. I usually consider it a good day when i get off without and insult. But there he was, commiserating about the patients and the patient's family and the frustrations of the healthcare system. I had to find a polite way to kick him off so the house supervisor could use the phone to answer a page. If that wasn't enough, he showed up on the floor to see the patient in question and there we were working together to correct a problem with a leg; it was all old-fashioned style with me donning rubber gloves and rubbing in the lotion and handing him the tape and positioning things so he could access what he needed to (that shit never happens in my real life). At the end of the procedure we walked out of the room together and he said "Good Teamwork". i wanted to ask him what the aliens had done with his brain!!! As I left for the evening, he was still in the building. To be specific he was taking a break in the patient's TV lounge watching the world cup game with the CNA's. I stopped in and stood next to them for about 1 minute of the last 2 minutes of the game. Hmmm. Doctors. Human Beings. Mutually exclusive? well, shit, i'm trying to keep an open mind. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
11:29 pm	battle scars Reba has scratched me before, but i was giving her direct personal care and i guess it was uncomfortable or hurting a little. She's also cussed at me terribly and thrown medications back in my face. It's no secret that she's what you would call "agressive", "agitated" or "uncooperative with care". But yesterday she amazed me. I was standing across the lobby from her and she called me over with a sweet look on her face saying "nurse, come here, i need your help". I walked over with a smile on my face and said "yes?' and once i got within 3 feet of her her entire face changed and she lunged towards me and gouged my wrist with her fingernails, spewing obscenities all the while. Then, later, Mrs. Henter went on a very long rant about all the stuff she was going to shove up my ass and how much it was going to hurt. Her roomate, equally disoriented and with the biggest eyes ever, kept saying "Yes Yes" and "NO No" alternately. I try always to remember that they are in a nursing home all the time and i get to go home at the end of the day. It's usually enough to remember that. Well, and the humor part. Plus, in truth, I love a good battle scar. (and to be sure my last scar from Reba hadn't healed yet). Plus, the other thing that happened is that Pam decided she liked me that day. Which means she kept saying "I Like You" in loud slurred declaration. And she put her arm around me while i fed her for lunch. I said "Pam, you're so sweet today, why are you so sweet today? If you don't stop with the sweetness, you're just going to make my day." and that was the truth! Well, plus i have this great new scar, wanna see it? Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Delta 5 (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 16th, 2006
2:11 am	getting the eye It's amazing how many of the old ladies are very attentive to female attractiveness. I can think of at least 3. Francine sometimes follows me around in her wheelchair, and when she's in the friendly mood (not the hellraising mood), she'lll repeat "girl, you so pretty", "girl, you look so goood, come here, let me see you pretty girl" she'll look all the way up and all the way down and say "those looong legs. girl you so pretty." and she'll beckon me towards her and sometimes touch my face and i try to deflect her compliments as gracefully as possible. I've seen her do it with other women and girls as well. one girl, a coworker's daughter, was in her teens. Francine kind of creeped the girl out because the line between "appropriate" compliments and something else is a little hard to discern with her. Truth is, i can't actually tell her motives. Ms. Anheim is another. She doesn't have a good enough memory to remember who i am from one day to the next, but she always reacts to me the same when she's on my rotation (which is only a few times a month, generally). her eyes light up and she holds my hand (tightly) and says "let me get a look at you; you are sooo good looking, come back anytime you like, yes i love to see that pretty face". She says it in her room, in the hall, or in the dining room or TV room packed with people. And she says it again a half hour later. And so forth. Yesterday, Ms. Jackson added herself to the list. i came in with a new set of scrubs (which got a few compliments -- it was a sort of fancy pair). I walked up to her bed to check her tube feed and she said "that's a pretty shirt, ooh, it's so nice." as i walked to the other side of the room she kept talking "yeah, you look good in that shirt, yeah, that's one pretty nurse". "oh, yeah, a good looking nurse". as i left the room and came back in with another resident's medications, she was still saying, "i ain't never seen such a gooood looking nurse." Now, i'm nothing too special or anything, it's not like i look like a movie star. I suspect i'm not the only woman who has this experience, and it makes me wonder what it's all about. Maybe it's just cultural, a kind of rich emotive way of complimenting other women not at all tied with flirtatious motives. But i'm not convinced of that. I wonder too, if there are flirty intentions, what the whole story is. Are they women who have always been hot for women in some way or other? did they ever act on it? did they repress it and now that senile demenia has begun to set in, have they lost some of the inhibitions which kept them from expressing it? Whatever it is, it adds a strangely positive tinge to work (as awkward as the compliments can get, it's refreshing to see these women lay it on that way, to allow such an 'unladylike' streak to come through). I wonder what kind of crazy inhibitions i'll throw off when my senile demention finally kicks in!! (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 15th, 2006
1:21 am	the pokeroot solution I got off at 12:30 am after working 17 hours. no breaks. a stale terrible PB and J sandwhich (rejected by one of the nursing home residents days ago) since 2 pm. ugh! (ok, i lie, Mr. C and his visiting family did offer me a slice of broccoli rabe pizza at about 7 pm which really did rock my world, and without which i would have turned into a monster before midnight). I am the kind of girl who can be convinced to stay an extra 4 or 5b or 8 hours by the right grovelling supervisor. a bad trait in my profession. So, i'm tired. but it's ok. no parties. no meeting with my friend about the graphics for the project i'm working on. and that Seder didn't exactly end early last night. But i have a lot more energy than i would have expected at this point. When i first became a nurse i called it the unlimate pokeroot solution. Pokeroot is a poisonous plant purported to have medicinal uses as a tincture (i'm not condoning this -- remember i used the word "poisonous) the idea is that very tiny tiny amounts (ike one drop, no more) stimulate your system when you're really stangnant and not healing. introducing a very smalll amount of a certain kind of poision is supposed to jumpstart your system and make it forge ahead to conquer whatever's ailing you. I'm not giving credence to this as a viable healing technique, but i find a lot of use for it as a metaphor. Before i became a nurse i was really cautious about the amount of rest i got and my health and i felt that everytime i strayed anywere off that narrow path, i immediately got sick. but, being a nurse (and doing crazy things like running all night like a chicken with my head cut off, eating minimally and wierdly, or working 17 hours straight, etc) forced me to plow ahead. it was like a wierd poison i introduced to my body which forced my body to figure out how to be more highly functioning. it doesn't always work. sometimes i just spend weeks at a time staving off migraines. but my stamina now vs. my stamina (real or percieved makes no difference, does it) is vastly different overall. but, fuck, i'm so glad i have tomorrow off! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 1st, 2006
1:57 am	beautiful barritone mr john was singing, just singing. he has the most beautiful baritone. It's amazing, he's in his late 80's and still has the most beautiful barritone voice. he's a little confused and wanders around a lot trying to go home or to go somewhere, noone's quite sure. his wife's room is down the hall from his. she's a little less sure on her feet, but a little more solid in her mind. when mr. john gets unsettled. we call on mrs. john, and she comes down the hall and talks to him and before we know it he's in his gown all tucked into bed sawing logs. mrs. john seems pretty unphased about the whole thing. I asked mrs. john about mr. john's singing, if he'd been in a choir or something. she just said "he's always loved to sing". She really is a woman of very few words. Me, i could listen to that voice all day. (Comment on this)
Friday, February 10th, 2006
2:07 am	crazy day first thing of the day: walk into needle exchange. It's chaotic, 2 people are waiting for me to give them hepatitis vaccines, etc., a client walks into the back to get test results, more people show up, hectic, crowded, loud, immunizations in progress. Client comes out of the back with tears streaming down face, bravely and matter of factly asks for follow up immunizations. I curse the sudden overflow of activity, want to wisk client away to quiet serene uncrowded setting with beautiully arranged fresh fruit trays and comfortable overstuffed chairs and take my time and look client in the eye and ooze calm and comfort. I quietly bump another (hurried) client back in line, deal with it as best as i can, feel less than warm and human as a result of all the chaos, kick myself a little. as i ride home i think of all the ways people, like this client, get kicked in the teeth over and over again. heartbreak. last thing of the day: after a hectic shift at the nursing home i am informed by a coworker that they have instituted a new policy whereby all employees are required to bring transparent bags only to work. This is a response to a theft problem. Would they ever attempt this at a mostly white nursing home? one in a different neighborhood with employees from a different socioeconomic grouping? does anyone think this will really have any effect on theft? Mind you, the majority of employees are disgusted and disheartened by the theft. The majority of the employees are also pissed and annoyed with management because they/we get treated with very little respect at all. Management has done nothing at all to gain the respect and cooperation of the staff, has offered very little real support to staff, has always been very quick to resort to intimidation, shaming, accusing, blaming, and making people feel like criminals. Bleah. As i ride home i think of the ways people get kicked in the teeth over and over again. I want to kick some people in the teeth. heartbreak turns to anger. Current Mood: infuriated Current Music: stevie wonder (Comment on this)