19th October - The date I started my new job :)

I've been working at a Residential home for nearly 2 months now. I absolutely love it! All the people are so friendly! I've already learnt a lot; I do personal care quite often and I love just having a chat with the residents. I do feel like it's really preparing me a lot for nursing!! :-)

I'm gonna explain a bit about my work -
he shifts I normally do are 7.30 - 2.30 or 2.00 -9.oo and 12.00 -9.00!

Some people I work with are:

People with Dementia - find it quite sad really!there's this one woman who has it really bad and you can't have a proper conversation with her. She forgets to eat and absolutely hates anything wet - so it's hard to give her a wash! She loves music and will dance/sing to it.

Stroke victims - there's two residents, they are quite hard to get dressed etc.. but i'm starting to get used to it - one of them also has a catheter aswel. So it's been interesting learning about that and how you have to write the amount of urine in the nightbag down on a sheet of paper & put down what the colour is. Lately it has been full of blood! :S which isn't good.

Parkinsons - This one lady has parkinsons - she doesn't seem too bad because she's on medication for it. Only thing I notice is that her mouth is open for a long time sometimes and she takes longer to respond when having a conversation.

There is also this one lady who is 101 years old! :O she's amazing. She was recently registered blind but she can see a little bit. She is fine mentally and physically! She can walk fine but gets tired if it's a long walk (eg to her bedroom) so she goes in a wheelchair! She is very thin. Too thin really. She only has foods that have been blended - like soup. Because she says she has a problem swallowing but it has not been confirmed by GP but she will eat a custard cream! makes me laugh. She's a character!

I have done two days of my moving & handling course! Which has helped me a lot! I've got one more day left this week so I will let you know how it goes!