Write That Down

Have you ever had so many good ideas you mentally think in your head shit I need to write that down? Or how about you have so many ideas brainstorming you want to write them down but when you start to write them down you forget all the good details you were just sitting for an hour thinking up in your head. What about when you are driving and you come up with a complete business plan in your head and all a sudden remember holy shit I am driving but somehow you haven’t run right into a damn pole, or where I live an Amish buggy.

My mind works. I am not dumb, but when I go to a new job, sometimes I can catch on and later on after a few months realize I have been missing a step or two and then the boss gets really mad and asks why haven’t you done this or that. And I’ll say I forgot because well I did, the very minute you were explaining what to do two months ago to me. I forgot it. Even though you told me 11 times and wrote me out instructions, I forgot. Then I notice a change in the people around me. I can see the irritation on their face, I can hear it in the sighs or the way they speak to me. I see it when they don’t want to let me do certain things because I am too slow at it or I don’t say the right things. I may miss a word or a number and that would just mess the entire process up, even if three other people were to check me after I was done. It is my fault.

Sometimes my mind does amazing things. It will do one thing great, I will master it and I will succeed. I know that I like to people please and help others. I enjoy buying people things if I have the money. That makes me feel so good to find things for others and see how excited they are when they get it. Especially my children and my nieces and nephews. They are the best. I love the satisfaction I get when a boss or a co-worker asks me to do something for them and they thank me and treat me like I am a person they need and appreciate me. But that ends so quickly because something will trigger my brain and have me thinking they are using me, they have been talking behind my back, and they get me to do more than I should. I will tell you about a few.

I like to help, but not taken advantage of.

This one time I worked at a personal care facility. It was in a very small town. Everyone that worked there lived close to the home. This was a personal care home. Not a nursing home. None of the women working there had any CNA training or nurses training except for the owner. And when she would come in she was always out of her mind. She had no idea what was going on. She even had her 75-year-old mother working double shifts because she couldn’t be bothered to come in when she was at home, or on one of her many vacations.

Anyway, this place called me on Christmas morning while I was sitting around my Christmas Tree with my Children while they unwrap their presents wanting me to come into work right then and there because someone called off. I knew what they were calling for and I didn’t answer, I knew if I did agree to come in for a few hours that would have turned into working for someone else. Now, I understand this happens, and its a job but I was getting $11 an hour and no benefits, but I liked being able to come in at 11pm and leave at 7am so I could put my two older children on the bus and then snuggle up with my youngest child for a while and take a nap for about an hour or two. It just worked for me. Plus once I got all my duties done most of the time I could sit down and write for an hour or two or try and read a little.

This place was meant for elders who could take care of themselves that needed very little assistance. I was hired as a nighttime housekeeper. I was told at my interview I would be hired to just clean the facility at night while all the residents are sleeping. I was just going to be there almost as a eldersitter, to make sure nothing major happens, and if they wanted a drink or a snack. I was perfectly fine with that. At $11 an hour sure, I can do that. I had no issue at first helping an old woman change her depends, or helping one with a sit bath. Not an issue at all. I enjoy being around old people. But it turned into helping this women change her depends at all hours of the night, changing her bed linens three or four times a night, helping her into her bed because she couldn’t do it herself, and getting her multiple snacks because she was so hungry. This one was so particular you had to make sure that there were no wrinkles in her bed sheets or she would get up at night trying to fix it and she would wake others up because she would cling and clang her walker around like she was fighting with it. One resident would soil their bed every single night and when you walk into the room in the morning the smell was so pungent it would knock you right back out the door. He needed assistance getting out of bed as well. There were many with Alzheimer’s and some with range and outbursts. They said the residents will sleep all night while I was there to clean. THAT WAS A LIE. They were up and down all night.

After a month, I was given the task of waking the residents up at certain times for breakfast. I had 18 residents and it was just me all night. For six of them, I had to test their blood sugar. No, I never had any training to do that. I also was asked to oversee one man as he catheterized himself every morning. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. Before the next lady comes in for the morning shift, I had to have ALL the cleaning done, Three bathrooms, all the laundry washed and dried and put into the rooms to who they belong too, and mind you I wasn’t sure who wore what yet, I was there for one month, two common living rooms, sweep and dust hallways, sweep and mop all the floors in the foyer, dining area, and kitchen. Plus many other little tasks. All the while having residents who needed help going to the bathroom, or wanting drinks, roaming around when they need to be in bed, needing more bed linens, cleaning up their shitty beds, remaking their beds, assisting them with changing their clothes when they soiled them and getting rid of the thieves in the room, making sure that none of them bolted out the door, our facility was so close to the road and the travelers never slowed down for anything.

I learned to do all the extra stuff, if I didn’t get all my cleaning done and to the standards of the next shift I could feel the scowls, and I already heard them talk about all the other people that worked there in such disrespect and hateful ways, I didn’t want any of them to feel like that about me, so I learned and I did my job well until they had me on top of everything else waking residents up and making sure they are ready, helping them dress and sit bath, making sure I gave them their morning medications, making sure I fed them their breakfast all before the transit bus comes to take them to their appointments before all the other residents. Plus I still had to finish up my duties, waking other residents up, helping a few get dressed, and to the dining room, changing bed linens of whoever beds that was scheduled for that day also changing about three to four others who had soiled their beds as well, getting all the trash from the rooms, and bathrooms, making sure all laundry was done or at least in the dryer. Not forgetting to get the six residents sugar tests done. They hated me coming in so early stabbing them with a needle. One old man gave me hell for it. He told me he didn’t want me in his room until 6:30am. I needed everything done by 7am! If I didn’t oh man, was I the devil.

Then there was a father-in-law of one of the cooks that work there that they had put in the best room in the building. He was on dialysis and was deteriorating fast. He needed to most attention but I also had a few others that needed my attention just as about as much. This fellow was dying and if I didn’t jump when he said, or if I didn’t put something where he needed it, he would complain to his family and they would get so pissed and say we did not know how to do our job and threatened to take him out of the facility if we can not do what he wanted. It come to a point that this old man needed help in and out of his chair and let me tell you those tiny frail old people are no joke heavy. They don’t look like it but their dead weight is a son of a bitch. This fellow needed help with wiping and changing his depends, needed to be dressed, and he could barely stand to do that, he needed dressings changed on his sores which were hard to get to while sitting, he was cold, then hot, he needed water, he was the only resident in this home that had a call bell and this man would not use it, he would call from his room on the phone to the home! 12am, 3am whenever for a cup of water, or his cover fell off him or he needed help to the bathroom. That phone was so loud all the residents heard it. Every time the slightest noise would happen our one older lady, the oldest one in the home would jump out of bed and come out. She had sundowners. She wasn’t sure where she was, she didn’t know if it was day or night. She didn’t remember if she was in bed or what she was doing, she took a lot of work too. So while I am back tending to the old man who is actively dying she was out roaming the halls, using the restroom without me even though she knows she isn’t allowed to because she needs assistance with that and she needs assistance getting back into her bed so she doesn’t fall, I am in the back.

There came a time when this old man that was getting ready to pass where was restless, I came onto one of my shifts and I got briefed on what was going on and what I would need to do. As a housekeeper that has never had any training as a CNA or Nurse of any sort besides taking care of my children and my own grandfather, they were asking me to stab this dying man with morphine shots when he would become restless. Knowing he could pass and would, and that I could be the cause of that I refused. I was so upset. My beloved grandfather died not too long ago at this time and that wound still hurt. I could not do it. They all told me if I had any problems to call to cook who was related to the old man and she would come to help. Nope, that was a lie. One night the old man fell out of his bed, I ran back, blood everywhere, I was wearing a white T-shirt. It was covered in this man’s blood. I called for help and couldn’t reach anyone. I got him up the best I could and cleaned him up. I felt so bad. I had to wash my T-shirt I was covered in this old man’s blood. Another time the electricity went out and we were all in the dark for an hour. I made everyone I could stay in the rooms but that was not happening, I called the owner, it was around 2am, and she said to have them all stay in their rooms and said they would be over to help. At 5am someone came and they went straight to the old man’s room that was passing. Did not help with anything else. When the next shift came they were in an uproar because I didn’t get all my work done. I was sick to my stomach.

We had a book there that all the workers would write in. We all would talk about what happened during our shifts. All that book was, was a burn book. Like in the movie Mean Girls, only it was workers degrading other workers for those workers to see, and for them to be called out and embarrassed, and it was workers taking shit about the residents. I was told to write as much as I could down, then when I did, I got told I was writing too much. All they wanted to see was me talking shit about who didn’t do what before their shift ended, which resident was and I quote “so lazy to get out of bed to use the bathroom” Or who was causing drama with who. I refused to partake. So I started just writing the basics and the same shit I did every day because that is what was happening. I told them what they are asking of me is too much. I am not a CNA. I told them I didn’t feel comfortable administering morphine to anyone, and I did not like rubbing cream on this old lady whose bladder was hanging out of her vagina. Yes, sagging, hanging, dangling out of her vagina and it would get sore. That was not in my job description. AND it was during the COVID pandemic, we ran out of gloves and I refused! I refused to wipe asses, and I refused to prick all the residents without gloves. One of our residents got COVID, and this resident would not stay in her room. She kept saying she didn’t have COVID but the doctor said she did. They did not isolate her. She was one I had to go into her room and test her blood sugar. I did not have gloves or masks or the proper PPE to do so. I did not want to spread it to other residents or take it home to my children. I caught holy hell for all of this. I did not want to hurt the residents in any way, I did not want to give them an infection because I did something wrong, or hurt them because I couldn’t hold them up the proper way or get them sick. And I for sure did not want to help them die with morphine. Hospice should have been there and they were not.

I come into work one night, and the owner and the owner’s father were there waiting on me. It was 11pm at night. They wanted to address me to my face and say if I would have looked here and there I would have found more gloves and masks. I assured them I did look and so did the woman who was working before me. But magically once I stated it was against regulation masks and gloves show up in the same places I looked four or five different times. I was asked to sign a paper stating I wouldn’t give the residents morphine shots as well. I was told maybe this job wasn’t for me. I said what? Housekeeping? It is a good fit for me. But I am no CNA. From that night on, my hours were cut, all the other workers had attitudes toward me, and I decided I was no longer going to work there.

I have quit a few incidents at jobs like this. It makes me feel inadequate and not capable of doing a good job. I miss those residents and the few hours of the night where it was just quiet as can be. The greetings from the residents. I don’t however like other aspects of the home. Maybe its been this way since before I came and I am sure it was, but I just could not do what they asked of me. In this case, I was glad I decided to go. Have you ever had instances like this? Or felt the way I have? My brain does wonderful things but once it becomes overwhelming and it scrambles and I lose all I have retained and my work suffers. I am trying my best. I want to learn new things, a trade or something but it is so hard to keep it all in, and not forget something I just learned 5 minutes ago if I am not into what I am suppose to do. I wish I could. Some thing I pick up right away, other times when I feel it is the most important my brain fails me. Jobs I know I would be great at turn into jobs I am ashamed I even tried to get because I am not capable of holding what I see, or learned in my head. I hurt my own feelings trying to do a job and then failing.

Side Note

I am trying to figure this all out. I want to write, I want to have my own office, I want to have a trade and multiply sources of income so I can finally get a house for me and my children. I just need to get my brain to stop scrambling and stay hard boiled. I will take any kind of suggestions you may have for me. I also have a Paypal account, if you feel like you want to help me explore my writing and want to help me succeed in this life I would very much so appreciate it.

paypal.me/SeasonsofAndi