Over the last 10 days or so they’ve been training new workers to replace the regular ones when they go on vacation this summer. They are no longer shadowing the regular workers and are fully responsible for my care now.
Sometimes, they just throw them in, and it becomes a matter of sink or swim. Many of them flounder.
It’s a trial of my patience and endurance as they fumble their way through my ADLs. I know they just want to help and they have to learn somehow, but I really wish they didn’t have to practice on me. I try to be a good sport. I am a teacher’s aide, of sorts, telling the newbies what to do next and then guiding them through the process. At least I still have my wits about me and can talk them through something when they falter. I don’t know how they cope with a resident who can’t.
Sometimes they move or put things away where they don’t belong. It’s not just a matter of me being bitchy about something in the wrong place. There’s usually a good reason why something is where it is. When they mess up, it means I can’t reach or pick up the object, and there’s nothing more frustrating.
They struggle to get the sling under me evenly, and when it’s not it affects my comfort during transfers from one thing to another, such as my chair to my bed.
A potentially dangerous thing happened this morning. The drug mule – a.k.a. pharmacy tech – is a fill-in but flying solo for the first time. She held out the spoonful of pills for me to look at before shoving them into my mouth. I always do a quick visual check first, all four times they come to me throughout the day with my medication. I guess it’s the control freak coming out in me. I have trust issues. People make mistakes. So do machines. I don’t want to be given some old guy’s Viagra. Sometimes I think I don’t need to bother, but then something like this morning convinces me it’s important. In the four years that I’ve lived here, I have found errors about 4 to 6 times. Nothing serious, something missing or too much of another. I’ve read that occasional reinforcement is more powerful than constant.
I stop myself from automatically opening my mouth. “Wait a second. There are too many pills there.”
There are seven pills on the spoon when usually there are only five. I take a closer look.
“You’ve given me two extra baclofen. I’m only taking two of them now.”
“Okay. I’ll check the MAR when I go back.”
No idea what the MAR is, but all the mules refer it. It must be some sort of pharmaceutical Bible.
At 430 she arrives to give me my supper pills.
I give her a gentle reminder. “Did you have a chance to check the MAR about the extra baclofen this morning?”
“Oh yeah. I pulled the lunchtime dose at the same time.”
If I hadn’t caught it, she would’ve given me a double dose. Baclofen is a muscle relaxant. That’s why I take it four times a day. I probably would have gone back to bed wondering why I was so exhausted. No apology, acknowledgement that she goofed, sense of responsibility, nothing. Apparently, no big deal.
I hate being a data point on someone’s learning curve.