Hello! 1 month, 2 weeks and 6 days!!!
I worked 7.30am until 6.00pm yesterday, also worked til 9.30 pm the night before so I didn't get much sleep in between. The day started off with me being paired with another carer who was so patronizing and kept putting me down all the time! I hate carers like that so much. There had to be two of us to help three of the residents get up and dressed. She did things so fast and was really rough with them and it made me feel like just because I wasn't at the same pace as her that I wasn't as good!
For example, she said 'comb his hair for me' and so I did it gently and at a normal pace! She was like 'you can do it harder than that you know! ' she said the same thing when I was washing one of the residents.. I can't help it if i'm a gentle person! She goes ' young people these days hey! ' and kept showing me up in front of the residents saying 'she's only a young girl' and stuff like that. She told me to take one of the residents to the toilet which I did, I was standing outside with gloves on while she was still in there... then she goes ' you can get 'Mrs blank' up from the table while you're waiting you know! ' So I went to get her up and she goes ' seee you can do two things at once!' the b i t ch!
First of all, she was already in there cleaning up and she could have done it herself and second because I had gloves on and the woman who I took to the toilet is quite quick & doesn't like being left on her own for a long time so I was about to go back in !!
It really annoys me as I'm 20 years old and I don't think my age has anything to do with how capable I am! Just because i'm not as fast and rough as she is! I've not been working in the care home for long but long enough that I'm not shadowing people anymore and getting them up by myself, she made me feel like it was my first day or something! And how she kept telling me to do things? I mean yes at first I got told all the time but I have worked there for 4 months and I know the routine and how to do things now! Yes, I take my time doing them because I want to get it right! She just made me feel so useless and like I shouldn't be doing that job! i've never felt like that before, most of the other staff are lovely though!
Later in the afternoon it went from bad to worse! I was in the lounge/dinning room and was just cleaning the tables after dinner. One of the residents started choking! I went over and she wasn't even coughing or anything she just couldn't breathe at all and was turning a funny colour! She started to get up from her chair and walk towards me even though I told her to try and sit down. It was like she was trying to wave to me with her hands for help! It was so scary because it's the first time i've been in a situation like this on my own and she looked so close to death! I quickly hit the emergency button and the others came running as fast as they could.It really shook me up though and I burst into tears afterwards! and so did other staff members & even the manager had tears!:/ I felt like right idiot though and I should have coped with it better! When she was choking I kind of froze for a few seconds then thought should I press the emergency button or not and I looked at her and thought 'this is definitely an emergency' and pressed it!
Also earlier in the week I found out that one of my favourite residents has got skin cancer! :( and that it has spread to her lymph nodes! They gave her the option to amputate her leg which she refused or to have radiotherapy which will just probably make her a bit longer. It's very sad. She also has parkinsons and diabetes! I said to her how do you feel about it and she just said it hasn't really sunk in yet. Which I can understand. I had a little cry on the way home, I have to let it out otherwise it'll all bottle up inside.. no of my friends my age really understand so I can't really talk to many people about it. That's another reason I can't wait to start nursing to have people who actually understand how hard it is emotionally.
I've got 4 days off now yey! So going to relax. I went to see JLS in concert on wednesday night they were really good! :) I forget sometimes that i'm still young and I get caught up in all of it. I still need to enjoy these days otherwise I might regret it one day. . .
Hey
ReplyDeleteYour post made me really angry, I hate people like that carer you're talking about, how they are so patronizing and can make you feel so small! You need to be assertive, and say to people like that afterwards, away from the residents, that you find them patronising and don't wish to be belittled by them. You need to tell them exactly how their attitude makes you feel else they'll just continue to do it to other people and make them feel just as crap. It sounds like you have a far more gentle, softly softly caring approach than she does and there is nothing bad about that at all!
Smilee172 (TSR)
Hey!
ReplyDeleteIts really hard though! I'm the type of person who takes it at the time then I think about it afterwards and I get so angry!!
Something similar happened with another carer yesterday...
I had only just come back from my dinner break and went in to help with the dinners, 1 of the other carers went to get something from the kitchen and this other one came in to help me. The place was a bit of a mess because the other woman was left on her own!
Anyway, I was washing up and this carer that had just come in said 'Let me do that... you really need to pick up your pace hun' I was SO angry and I told her I had only just come back and it wasn't me in here! Don't think she believed me though.
I love the actual job - caring for people but its the staff which make it hard at times. I do need to become a bit more thick-skinned! It's like they have a thing against younger people though and I constantly feel like i'm trying prove that I can do it!