My Experience as a Nursing Aide

I come from a line of CNAs. My mother was a supervisor at a home care-giving company at the time of her passing but had actually been a CNA/med-aide for years. I can recall going with her to a lady's house and sitting and waiting while she bathed and took care of her client as a child. Not only was she a CNA but her mother was too -- before a CNA license was even required.

After becoming an adult, experiencing some hardship, I decided I would be interested in getting into traditional midwifery. However, in my state, you have to start with nursing. I thought that nursing would provide a stable income for me to raise three babies by myself while I worked up towards traditional midwifery , by the time my children would be old enough for me to go out and support women and catch babies at any time of the day or night. And so, I decided that I might as well start on the path as a CNA (disclaimer/spoiler: I did not get certified, I trained to become certified but it did not happen for me.)

I was hired first at a rural nursing home and I was so thankful for the opportunity, I was thankful for good training and hoping for a good work experience. I already knew that being a nursing aide could be challenging. I had heard many of stories but I thought, "If I plan to get into Midwifery, I would love to serve women from womb to tomb. I might as well get experience serving elderly men and women first."

I will never regret the experience of training as a nursing aide. Even though it was only a short time, it further helped shape my thoughts on life.

I was in the back on the computer for an entire month of doing my training before I was able to go onto the floor.

I loved learning about Dementia and Alzheimer's. The videos were interesting to watch while I was training. Especially, the videos created by Teepa Snow. (I highly recommend binging her YouTube videos if you're in the Nursing field or contemplating it!)

I loved getting out onto the floor and meeting the residents. Each and every patient having their own story, I was excited. I didn't mind the things that some wouldn't exactly want to take care of. I mean, I'm a mom of three.

I honestly enjoyed being there as an aide for the residents.

However, I did move on to a different facility that was a bit larger due to concerns with nepotism and treatment of residents. The facility I now was at consisted of both an assisted living house and a dementia/alzheimer's house. I started over with my training and watched a different video on dementia and started doing training online to not only work towards eventual certification as a nursing assistant but also to become a medication aide.

I was so blessed to wake up each day and to go and care for residents. It wasn't all sunshine, I did have moments where I had dementia residents who did have a couple of episodes that were challenging. However, being a nursing aide showed me that as a society, we often just forget about our elders. Many residents didn't get visitors often. Some residents had their pain concerns not taken seriously. Each resident I met was an absolute beautiful soul deserving of quality care.

Thank you for reading.

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