What do you think of when you thing of Assisted Living? Truly think about it, break the words down and look at the word how it is truly written out and keep in mind what you thing of when reading through this.
Last summer I took my CNA class in Grantsburg through the school’s special program. I thought that it would be fun and easy because why would elderly people be that hard to deal with, right? Like they have have manners, and respect and are more mature then people in high school or younger… Well, I was WRONG!
Throughout my 8 months of working in a few different nursing homes I have has some very good experiences, but also some very hard, and awful experiences that makes going to work everyday sometimes, dreadful. (But not all the time, there are really good days for the majority of the time). Now, me being the ignorant, new adult that I was at that time, didn’t realize that there is actually quite a bit of mental health issues along with the Dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc., and that makes things a little more difficult.
THE NEW ADMITS
Usually it is quite fun to meet new residents. I absolutely love when we have new residents coming in at the Assisted Living facility I work at, especially because at the beginning the new residents are open to meeting new people and ready to start the next chapter in their lives and they bring much joy to the facility. But sometimes we get new residents who don’t want to be here and possibly even have things going on in their lives that are far greater than what Assisted Living and/or Memory Care facilities are actually capable of doing as far as our training and license.
For the record, I want to make it clear that I am not in any way, shape, or form making fun of, or disrespecting residents.
Monday night I was called into work, no big deal right? I can do this, it’s going to be a good night, I get to meet two new residents that were admitted a few days prior! When I got to work I walked in and my night co-worker was in tears and didn’t look very happy. I saw that the new resident was at the desk so I said hi and introduced myself and the next thing I knew she kicked me in the stomach and grabbed my hair and started threatening my life. I WAS TERRIFIED. I started calmly talking to her and trying to get away. We are not allowed to touch or restrain residents and I was doing everything I possibly could without making physical contact to get away. Some first impressions are not very wonderful. My shift had just started and I still had 7 hours and 45 minutes left in my night and I truly just wanted to walk out and not deal with this. It is very difficult when you are assisted living and your resident is threatening not only your life but other residents lives. The rest of the night was terrible, my co-worker and I couldn’t leave the nurses station without this resident pouring water on our computers and she had stabbed me with a knife and fork and when we tried to pry them out of her hand we were unsuccessful.
Come back later for Part II…
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