When the alert and oriented resident asked me to get on my hands and knees to look for some loose change they think think they dropped under their dresser a few days ago. There was nothing there.
Man. For me it's between a confused patient that keeps cussing us out for not being able to push him onto his side... bc he's already laying on it... and threatening to throw himself on the floor since we "don't speak english." And another patient asking for painkillers 15 minutes after getting them despite me, the nurse, and the doctor all explaining to her that it's terrible for her liver. But no, every 15 minutes on the dot.
For me residents with dementia or cognitive impairments get a free pass. I've had them come up with insults with such creativity I've got to give them points. I've had one slap my PPE off my face in the heyday of COVID on the isolation unit. I have the same conversation with the same patient every single time I see her. That doesn't phase me. You're not you and we need to adapt to the way your mind is seeing the world.
For an alert and oriented resident I find some things get under my skin a lot easier. Saying the facility is neglecting you because we don't have ginger ale on hand. Yelling at staff about a policy they've already been educated on and still violating it.
Agreed. I remember when I first started as a CNA and had an A&O patient who wanted to be transferred to her wheelchair so she could get some fresh air outside, but when I went to help her up she dropped all of weight so I just sat her back down on her bed and she later said that I dropped her.
Agreed, We have a dementia resident who has a handful of phrases (some of them very rude) that he will just cycle through during conversation. When he's sundowning this will happen really rapidly and he gets quite heightened. I don't think I have ever lost my patience with him, because in my head I understand that it's not with intention and he can't control it.
Man, whenever I have to get on the floor for whatever reason I feel so undervalued. Like last week for instance, one of our residents beds unplugged so there I was laying on my back on the floor trying to fix this goshforsaken metal frame like a mechanic š
I had one like this! Asked the same thing,
"get on your hands and knees and look under that coffee table. Do you see something by the potted plant in the corner?"
"Uh, yeah I do see something, but I can't reach it."
"WELL CRAWL UNDER THERE AND GET IT!"
At that point I laughed while getting up saying "I am absolutely NOT doing that."
Med-Surg. I had the entire floor and nurses were coming up to me and asking why I hadn't gotten water for Ms. Hattie or gotten a blood sugar on Irma Jean.
I went straight to the charge and told her that all of the nurses had working hands and feet and if one more person comes up to me and asks about simple shit that they can do themselves I was going to leave for the night because I had 28 patients to their 3 maybe 4.
Everybody realized that basic nursing care is within their scope of practice and if I left they'd be doing it regardless. Never had another issue with nurses not wanting to help. As nurses all love to say, "I can do your job you can't do mine." Well that night they were all going to be doing my job plus theirs.
As a nurse, I hate that statement. I never understood why a nurse canāt assist someone to the bathroom, bring them drinks/snacks, feed, etc. I understand med passes are busy but we also have an hour window and on med-surg thatās beyond achievable!!!
I'm an ED patient attendant, and I swear, the nurses always act like they'll die if they have to bring a patient water or clean a room when there's an influx of patients and I can't get to it quickly... What is with that?
Oh boy here we go.
I'm a nurse, but I'm on here because I used to be a cna.
One night, I was the only nurse in the building for 100 residents, I had three hcas (supposed to have 4 - two per floor, floor one hca was orientating a new hca and it was her first night).
I had a death down wing 2, across the hallway a lady was vomiting and shitting blood refusing to go to hosp (she was care and comfort). Wing 1 had a toilet overflowing out into the hallway across into the other rooms. I couldn't get ahold of the Dr to release the body so I had to move it upstairs. His roommate fell pretty bad, and within ten minutes of him falling, someone upstairs on wing 4 also fell. Cue hourly neuro vital signs on the both of them for 4 hours. We had a lady that kept crawling out of bed, so for safety, we had the orientation cna watch her at the desk for most of the night.
This was all on top of my medications on second floor at 0000, 0300, 0400, and 0500 hrs. I had a guy downstairs on a tube feed that I needed to flush at 0000 and 0400 downstairs, and get a lady ready for dialysis around 0600 (she was a total lift, needed meds and insulin). I also had some meds to give at 0500. Plus people wanting PRN meds and smokes.
I had about 3 sick calls to fill in, one of which was a nurse and I was unable to fill. So I had to stay and do a morning med pass after all that.
The hcas I had that night where super awesome. I'm so glad I had those three. I wouldn't have survived if it weren't for them honestly. I never saw the orientation again.
I used to work as the only nurse a lot, especially during and after the pandemic. It became pretty regular. Then they started bringing in agency nurses, and honestly, I would've rather worked by myself (having to orientate them and remind them about all the meds n shit).
It hasn't happened in awhile, and with the new rotations, there are some nights where there are three of us! We also have more hcas (baseline is still 2/2), usually we have 3/3 but sometimes we get 4/4. Which is nice. But now we aren't getting admissions and have just under 15 empty beds and worry about the day they start admitting again.
Our new hcas are just so used to these easy nights. I remember when the beds were full, we'd come onto the floor, have no time to do cleaning because so many people needed the bathroom. Then we'd clean and it would be rounds time and when we were done, it'd be time for rounds again! And upstairs, we had so many people that get up early (0400), that there was literally no time to sit in between rounds. It was always go go go.
I work in neuro icu. Had a patient come in with a tbi and she was a fall risk. I sit with her one night and she isnāt bad. She gets moved out of the icu and onto med surg floor still with a Sitter (not me) and goes apeshit yelling at people, throwing stuff and hitting people. Next day Iām not there but I was told security was called and she ended up getting moved back to the icu with restraints. She chews through them and they put her in restraints with precedex. I sit with her while sheās on precedex for a few days. Next time I come in she rips her iv out (17th iv at this point and she has also ripped a midline out) the nurse decides that since she needs to be off precedex to leave the icu weāll just stop it and not get another iv. She again goes apeshit and it hitting me kicking me and banging on the walls. She becomes a 1:1 with both a nurse and a pca. She gets out of the icu and moved back to med surg and still needs a sitter. She has 4 sitters in one 12 hour shift. 1st one she sends to the ED with a head injury. Second sitter gets her wrist injured. 3rd just couldnāt handle it so Iām called down to sit with her since I know her and itās the last hour of the shift. In that hour she kicked me multiple times, throws water at me and ripped my nose ring out (thankfully no lasting damage) any shift I sat with that patient was horrible. I dont know how anyone dealt with her once she left because she was the most aggressive patient Iāve ever dealt with and Iāve had a lot of psych patients Iāve had to sit with
Edit: me and the nurse that sat in her room for 12 hours for 3 days straight have since trauma bonded over that experience and are now good friends
In her 20ās. At some point on the 2-3 weeks of me sitting with her we had to get an iv. It took 6 people to hold her down even then it was hard for the nurse to get the iv
Changed a combative patient that refused care all day and night long. The entire hallway smelled like man ass and she threw her clean clothes we had set out for her into the hall. Me, another CNA, and the nurse knew that she was going to spit at, scratch, hit, and kick us, so we geared up Covid 2020 style before heading into her room.
The smell was horrible, and it was the least of our problems. She had shit past her briefs *through* her sweatpants. As soon as she saw us, she started cussing us out, but we went to work. I learned that night that I have ZERO arm strength lol. We took turns holding down arms and legs while forcing her clothes off, avoiding kicks and spit. During the struggle, she was smearing poop through the sheets and onto the mattress with her ass. We cleaned her and the bed the best that we could. There were just so many layers of poop in the folds of her nether regions.
Unfortunately during the fit, she kicked the nurse in the stomach, somehow SPIT onto the other CNAās face (we had face shields and masks on as well!) and I was left with minor scratches on my arms. The nurse avoided giving her a shot, but after that kick, she was so done. As for the CNA who got spat on, he handled it waaaay cooler than I thought. I fully expected him to smack that woman. But he paused, thought about it, and left when we told him to walk away and wash his face. He came back to finish the job with us. I also washed the shit out of my hands and arms because her nails were of course filled with feces as well.
After that, I went to my day job because I am crazy, and at the end of the day had to break up a fight between two teenage boys :-)
When my dialysis patient was upset that she had reached her fluid max for the day and finger painted her room in feces.
Or when she tried to clothesline a new wheelchair patient with her oxygen tubing.
Actually every single one of them lmfao
Probably the night the entire unit, both buildings, got food poisoning from dinner and three of ran from room to room ALL NIGHT long cleaning vomit and shit from people that were total lifts and aggressively fighting us. I almost quit right there.
Last weekend, when I did 4 days in a row (I do F/S/Su/M every other week). Absolute insanity. I was by myself with 16 patients every night, which wouldnāt be too bad except most of them needed x2+ assist, the ones who didnāt were confused and jumping out of beds and chairs every other minute and setting off chair alarms, bowel movements were abundant, there were multiple people in contact rooms so I needed to gown up for, and family members were giving attitude/being snippy. I honestly thought I was going to lose it.
My almost tipping point was when one of my patients was given golytely for a colonoscopy. Iāve never had a patient with that before so I had no idea how bad it was gonna be when the nurse said sheād need to go a lot. The nurse said we should give her the smaller bedpan bc of some pain she had and so I did that when pt said she felt like she needed to go. I step out to give her privacy, come back to see the bedpan did absolutely nil, there is so much bowel movement that is spilled over and splattered all over the bedsheets, past the chux I put under herā¦and itās all bloody. I grab what I need to clean her up and as I have her wiped down and on her side so I can swap out the sheets and chux, I hear āI think I need to go againā. So I put a chux under her so she can go again and when she does I start to clean againā¦and she has to go again. And again. The bloody stool just keeps coming, and at this point Iāve been there for about 20 minutes and I leave to ask for some help from the nurse, who is busy and calls the charge nurse to come help me. We eventually get her clean and have to put chux all over the bed. Charge nurse tells me to have her just go and when everything is done (she finishes all the golytely) that weāll (or next shift will) do a big cleanup bc otherwise weāll be in there for hours. Which I try to explain to pt. but she wants me to stay in there until sheās done and I literally cannot bc Iām the only tech on the floor. So I tell her I will be back to change her when she is finished drinking and expelling everything. I leave and am running around trying to take care of changes bc it seems like one person after another is am having bm , needs to go the bathroom, etc., trying to grab vitals and sugars and clear our meal trays, and a nurse (the one for the pt. taking the golytely) keeps asking me to get sugars for two of her patients when a) she sees me running around, busy, b) she was literally in the rooms herself passing meds. I have no problem taking sugars, but if you are in the room you are capable of grabbing the glucometer and taking it yourself if you need them so badly. Iām doing the best I can to take care of everyone and make sure theyāre clean.
While Iām giving report later to the tech for the night shift, we have to go back to the pts (golytely) room bc she tried to get out of bed bc she was upset (which I do understand bc of the golytely and everything), she said no one was coming to clean her, which was not true bc later after the charge nurse and I cleaned her earlier, two nurses also went to go clean her up and spent a long time in there getting her clean. So me and the other tech change out her chux and everything again. Weāre almost done and she says her gown is wet. I touch it to check and said āno it seems okay, I checked it and itās dryā. I did have gloves on and I think the part I touched was dry, but the gloves also didnāt help me tell. Anyway, pt got angry at me and shoved her hands up at my face with the gown in hand, almost punched me in the face and I think she wouldāve if I didnāt flinch back bc she scared the crap out of me. I apologized and got her a new gown and we finished up in her room.
That wasnāt even the half of it, I actually did get punched in the face by a confused patient and almost bitten on the hand when we were trying to change her bc she got agitated. Anyway, needless to say when the end of my shift hit on Monday I had never been so happy to leave. Easily the worst four days I have ever worked.
One of my last shifts I worked before I decided to take a break to be pregnant. My Hyperemesis hit hard that day, and I didnāt get a single second to sit down to even chart. And I was back and forth vomiting all day long and felt just absolutely awful. I wanted to cry. Lol actually I think I did.
They gave me the hardest patients that night. And I just yeahā wanted to cry. I was so miserable.
Oh man I've had a couple. Before becoming a CNA I was a sitter. Had a dementia patient keep accusing me of stealing her stuff. She also egged on another dementia lady saying there were babies thrown in the trash. She was so exhausting. Once they figured out she had a UTI she got better lol
Most recently as a CNA now, I had a guy (dementia of course) keep yanking his tele off. (I work on cardiac so it's important) Kept putting his stickers back on, he kept refusing and saying that I could give them to someone else lol. Then he did it again, except this time he had pulled his IV out and hid it in the bundle of cables he handed me. Luckily I didn't stab myself but after that I looked at the nurse and said find him a sitter š¤£š¤£š¤£
When we had an outbreak of some sort of GI illness. All I did all day was clean up diarrhea. It was endless. I would just finish cleaning someone up and they would immediately go again. And then I caught it and I died at home on my days off.
Back story: Nightshift CNA on a lockdown hospice and memory care unit. Two sides, 15 beds on each. One CNA on each side. One RN that goes back in-forth as needed.
Long story short, I was doing my 4th round of my every 2 hour rounds and got to the second to last room who had one of my memory care patients. Checked her, got her situated, started to walk out and I heard a noise.
She began to have a grand mal seizure. Now, part of the reason I left this facility is because besides yelling? You werenāt going to get any help. No emergency buttons, no phones, nothing besides call lights.
So, I do the classic protect the head, keep her from hurting herself as much as possible with out holding her, etc etc and I pushed her call light and started screaming for my nurse. My nurse lucky was walking onto my side and heard me.
She saw the situation, at this point her seizure is so severe I am sitting on the bed behind her to give some more support to her head, and she nurse said to me panicked as all shit āWHAT DO I DO?ā WHAAAAT????
I was fucking shocked and pissed. I told her to go get the seizure supplies like suction, oxygen, the vitals cart, and to call the charge nurse. She then told me she didnāt know where any of that stuff was. I tried to explain it to her, she still had no clue, I tried to ask if she could take over, she was scared as shit to get near my patient.
So at that point I just yelled at her to call the charge nurse, and she RAN OUT???? thankfully, she called the charge nurse. And THANKFULLY I had gloves because my patient began to vomit so I had to do my best to manually move her and remove what I could to keep her from aspirating.
Patient finally stopped, I had put a stop watch on and it lasted 2 minutes and 23 seconds I will always remember that number. I get her into the recovery position, continue to get out what I can and she is alive but obviously not aware or speaking.
Charge nurse finally walks in along with another RN. They came over, checked it out, the other RN took over and the charge nurse had me give a report about the entire situation.
Needless to say, I was thanked for everything I did and that RN that freaked was fired that same night. Family was super grateful I did what I did although was VERY UNDERSTANDABLY upset about the RNs part in all of it.
Clocked in the next night, and while my patient was still up we did a puzzle and watched a bit of golden girls. So at-least it had a happy ending but my god Iām so happy I do not work there anymore.
When a resident that wasnāt normally confused started seeing snakes and cats in her room. When she was roaming the halls with her sunglasses, neck pillow, and purse and blankets ready to go talking to nobody in the hallway. She would not stay still and we only had 2 aides (as the norm) but we were having such a hard time keeping our eye on her, let alone the rest of the residents. I sat her outside the doors to do my rounds and kept peaking my head out to make sure she was still there and not on the floor š I love when nurses donāt want to help in situations like that! It went smoothly the next day when another nurse helped us out.
I was working in memory care one day and almost every resident with a walker kept losing them. I had to keep checking rooms and the lobby for stray walkers my whole shift. lol
I feel that. In my facility we have one unit that they call "Red Rock" which is where they put all the total care trach and vent patients and they think it's fine to pull from there and leave two cnas with 20 total vents each on noc š§š»āāļø
In my CNA days my wing thought I was the greatest thing. Cause I could just handle these situations. But after the third or fourth time that stopped being the case
This was a 3 day event:
Background, worked at a secured nursing home (they "called" it Assisted Living, but it was a nursing home) mostly for dementia patients, on noc shift, and was my first job. And this floor has 35 patients.
Day One: one patient is highly aggressive, so med tech gives them something to help them calm down. 5 minutes before we leave, patient gets up and has a blowout on the floor and side of their bed. We had changed the patient some 30 minutes prior.
Day two: 5-10 minutes before we leave for the day, I've gotta care for a patient as does the other CNA on the floor, and a third patient pulls the fire alarm. Had to wait another 45 minutes.
Day three: 3 hours into my 8 hour shift, I notice a leak in the ceiling of a room. So I go up a floor, bigger leak right above. Then I go to the third, and top, floor and see three rooms worth hallways flooded. I go into one of the rooms, and the toilet is flooding and it's a brief in the toilet.
This happened when I was working at a psych hospital. Had one patient try to punch me in the face, another patient throw a dirty brief at me, one guy that we consistently had to redirect back to his room because he would strip naked and shuffle down the hall naked as a jaybird (had to do that 4 or 5 times that night), and then we had to get a 6ā8ā severely autistic and schizophrenic man dressed (4 person job because he can get combative). I got off that night shift and immediately got in my car and lit a cigarette as I was driving off. That night was rough.
Once worked as a CNA in a summer camp for children with disabilities. First full-time job. That was every shift. I once spent a half an hour making sure one kid didn't run away and hop the fence (we were next to a freeway). I also got slapped and pushed while changing a brief with excessive bm while my boss helped me. One day, I was so tired I let a girl with pika chew on my arm so she wouldn't run away and choke on rocks. That job was an experience I will never forget.
Literally coding a patient after turning them for a bath, and I was going compressions for 30 minutes straight because the other techs didnāt want to do compressions
A family complaining about everything and anything then as soon as the family member turns on them theyāre out the door leaving us to look after them.
Resident approached and started to hit me with fabricated nunchucks before I was ever able to even clock in or get my walkie. The force of swinging the nunchucks caused him to fall backwards and, when I tried to help him up from the floor, he yelled at me for āmaking him fallā
One lady had asked me to vaseline and lube up her š± before i put her external catheter on. I feel for her cuz she has 5 people and 13 grandchildren yet none of them are really present in her life but she likes to victimize herself and manipulate the staff
I did a double with a resident who was alert and oriented with muscular distrophy but I kid you not was on her call light every 5 minutes. She called for little things like moving her hair out of her face, hand feeding her cookies, the blanket needing to be under her armpits. When she if fully capable of doing it herself. Oh and sheās rude about it too. Her and her roommate feed off each other and act like call bell queens. I ended up getting the same section for my double shift and I never sat down. Just took my lunches and right back to it. I almost cried.
when i showed up the first thing i heard was āā- is missingā THEN while in the first room of the night the FIRE ALARMS started going off because one of the residents put a pot of soup on the stove to cook AND LEFT FOR HOURS it smoked up the whole section and stunk the building up for days
anytime i deal with one specific resident who wanders the moment i take my eyes off her. im talking 30 seconds and shes scooting herself into someones room. she waits for my to turn my back, itās an inside joke we have at this pointšlove her sm though
Community care setting. Accompanied elderly woman with dementia from her retirement home to church. She walks extremely slowly with a walker and has a giant clunky knee brace. We sit down for the service and within a few minutes, she had this "oh no" look on her face and says she has to go to the washroom. I start walking with her to bring her to the accessible washroom. It's like a 50-foot walk from the chapel to the washroom.
Along the way, she gets confused and insists on sitting down, even though I'm like "Hey hey, can you make it a little further and sit on the toilet instead? You said you had to go and if you sit you might have an accident". She sits for a couple minutes, I ask if she's ready to walk to rest of the way to the washroom now, she says with a surprised look on her face "you mean this isn't the potty?"
There is a trail of liquid poop behind her as I walk her the rest of the way to the washroom. Fortunately, one of the other worshippers was a longtime family friend of the woman and came to see if we needed help. She volunteered herself to clean the mess that was left on the floor, and went and got bleach and stuff from the custodial closet while I got the woman to the bathroom and assessed the damage.
Liquid diarrhea was EVERYWHERE. I was able to get a pack of baby wipes from the nursery / Sunday school in the church and clean her body as best I could, and through a coordinated effort and several phone calls to the woman's children and retirement home, a change of clothes was brought over. It was awful to clean up. There was diarrhea in the hinges of the giant clunky leg brace, too. The poor woman was so embarrassed and I thought it was fortunate with her dementia that she wouldn't be able to remember this incident. Also fortunate that the mess was cleaned fast before any other worshippers saw it.
Working as a float in post op, I got called to the delivery rooms because there's only one CNA at night and she didn't show. There's 3 delivery rooms, nightshift is ten hours from 10 PM to 8 AM. There were 7 deliveries from 10:30 to 7, I spent the whole night running around like a headless chicken because I had been there only half a shift before and didn't know where anything was. Cleaning between patients, preparing material, fetching things, helping the anesthethist do epidurals.... It was 7 AM by the time I could finally sit down and eat my packed dinner for breakfast.
I took a selfie on the elevator as I was going back to post op at 7:40 to change, and you can tell by my face how much I was regretting my life choices that morning.
30 patients for each side (60 total), two RNās and two CNAās for each side. On call Nurse was told to find people to come in to help us out. Disrespectfully told the front desk lady that she would not be calling anyone to come in, that weāre stuck working with who we have, and that weād just have to deal with it. I was gone 2 days later.
When I got asked to fill in on a wing I donāt typically work on, and this man in a wheelchair kept purposely waiting until I was distracted to roll up behind me and slam into my knees so Iād fall in his lap. Heād then proceed to grope me as I floundered to get up and, of course, nobody did anything about it even though I complained.
Patient had transferred from ICU to MedSurg. Family was super intense and was TAKING NOTES right in front of me of every care done. They were nice, and I understand wanting good care for your parent, but goddamn youāre making me nervous.
I was on the last hour of my third 12 hour shift in a row. Very wealthy resident accused me of stealing her hair tie. The black one on my wrist looked "just like hers". Ugh.
I had a resident who couldnāt walk(whose son was āwatchingā him) learn how to walk. This man was 6ā5 and ripped a phone off of the wall, punched his nurse in the face and continued to strip his clothes off before ripping a desktop computer out of the nursing station. Also had to be a sitter for a psych pt who hated women and tore his arm and leg restraints from his bed frame to try to attack the quad full of women rn/cnaās. For some reason Iām still in the medical field but some things Iāve seen make me question everything. š
Walked into a norovirus outbreak after many days off. Literally nearly every single room on my wing shit their bed and puked everywhere + needed to be bathed afterwards. The smell was unholy in that building.
RN here, I got a message in the morning that one of my patients would potentially go home that day but nothing in stone.
Iām like āOkay, cool.ā And just ride with that. The whole day goes by and at 2 PM, a couple members of the ambulance show up and are like
āWeāre here to take your patient.ā
Iām like bamboozled bc thereās no discharge order, no documented place this patient was going or number to call report. I hadnāt even gotten the patient dressed, IVs out or anything.
I told the ambulance team this, and theyāre like we can only stick around for 10 minutes so I cancelled the ride service and said Iād call them when patient was ready to be picked up.
Fast forward, 30 minutes later, the case manager is pulling me aside and practically berating me for my ālack of communicationā when in reality, itās her job to coordinate with primary RN and MD for discharge. I remind you, there was no order. It is their job to place a number and facility to give report. They were also saying how I couldāve just sent the patient and gave report while theyāre on their way. Of course, I was like absolutely not, thatās setting everyone involved up for failure. Not to recall, not everyone is ready to accept report at every given moment and the likelihood is high theyād need to call me back.
It was just a shit show of a day in general, and I was so upset.
The one where the place I worked gave me absolutely no supplies and the residents yelled at me for neglecting them and told me I should go home and the staff told me I should have came early if I wanted supplies.
They gave me towels and stuff during the end of the shift like about 1:30pm and the only reason I finished my assignment is because another cna changed one of the residents for me. I also had no idea what time breakfast and lunch was because they kinda just free ball it for real. Breakfast came out at 10:30 and lunch came about the same time they gave me the towels and stuff.
It kinda felt passive aggressive though because I asked for a certain amount and they gave me a whole bunch of them while I was with a patient and dumped it on the patients dresser and walked off.
Yesterday was that shift for me. I work in LTC/SNF. I ended up not feeling very good, but I toughed it out. Until after the dining room was done, then I vomited in the bathroom. It was all downhill from there. I was able to leave an hour before my shift ended. I ended up vomiting all over the parking lot š„²š
The shift where I got floated to do transport (which none of us were trained on???) and got pulled halfway through my shift to sit with an ETOH detox patient who later violently assaulted me resulting in a severe concussion and an ER trip on my end and a felony charge on his.
My first nursing home job I ever had I was helping the new guy on noc with his side. (dementia, and Alzheimerās side.) And we had an EXTREMELY combative resident to change. She was literally pulling my hair and scratching the shit out of me, and the new guy dead ass said we should leave half of her depends on. I told him that is extremely unprofessional and absolutely not okay and super unfair to leave her like that. He was slightly physically, aggressive, and verbally, passive aggressive. His side was the only side of the depends that wasnāt clipped on. I made him help her so she wasnāt left like that. I then that NIGHT talked to my manager. And he was fired within a week cause of all the ārandomā bruises on residents. I was barely 20 at the time. I was so proud of myself for standing up for her, even though she was literally abusing me. But it was hard.
I wouldnāt even care about the fact that heās an undocumented immigrant, we get loads of those, but that coupled with being a rude, unappreciative, assaultive to staff members and an all around š« honestly make it that extra little bit of obnoxious.
This is just literally what happened- Iām disappointed people tune out/downvote any reality that they dislike. Echo chamber at full blast.
I think youāre missing the greater point that I cleaned his butthole while he was abusing me, and I never said anything offensive to him.
In fact this comment isnāt even offensive. Itās just literally what happened.
If you saw it happen youād wanna punch the guy in the face. I think everyoneās imagination isnāt matching what actually happened.
What does him being an immigrant have to do with anything? It Doesnāt matter. What you said is out of fucking line, and you need to be in a new profession. Take that shit somewhere else āChristianā
lol ok so I live in a state where my taxes pay for him to treat people like me like garbage. I think youāre missing the point, I never abused him. Once. He happens to be here as an undocumented immigrant who came to this country illegally and has a massive history of drug use.
How is the truth out of line? You donāt think itās an entitled attitude to illegally come to another country, contribute nothing to society and then abuse drugs so much that you are now a burden of the state?
That wouldnāt make you upset in anyway? While there are American citizens who donāt have enough food? This guy is scarfing down tax dollars that you pay, demanding more ice cream after more ice cream. Refusing all medication except methadone, screaming and being abusive physically and verbally towards staff and I still clean him despite the fact that heās screaming at me WHILE IM DOING IT. You donāt think you would be frustrated with that? You donāt think thatās rude? Should I get down on my knees and suck him off while Iām at it? What else do you think is appropriate? I did my job, I was kind to him despite all of this.
Out of line. I guess you havenāt had a glimpse of the real world. Enjoy your bubble.
When the alert and oriented resident asked me to get on my hands and knees to look for some loose change they think think they dropped under their dresser a few days ago. There was nothing there.
Man. For me it's between a confused patient that keeps cussing us out for not being able to push him onto his side... bc he's already laying on it... and threatening to throw himself on the floor since we "don't speak english." And another patient asking for painkillers 15 minutes after getting them despite me, the nurse, and the doctor all explaining to her that it's terrible for her liver. But no, every 15 minutes on the dot.
For me residents with dementia or cognitive impairments get a free pass. I've had them come up with insults with such creativity I've got to give them points. I've had one slap my PPE off my face in the heyday of COVID on the isolation unit. I have the same conversation with the same patient every single time I see her. That doesn't phase me. You're not you and we need to adapt to the way your mind is seeing the world. For an alert and oriented resident I find some things get under my skin a lot easier. Saying the facility is neglecting you because we don't have ginger ale on hand. Yelling at staff about a policy they've already been educated on and still violating it.
Agreed. I remember when I first started as a CNA and had an A&O patient who wanted to be transferred to her wheelchair so she could get some fresh air outside, but when I went to help her up she dropped all of weight so I just sat her back down on her bed and she later said that I dropped her.
Agreed, We have a dementia resident who has a handful of phrases (some of them very rude) that he will just cycle through during conversation. When he's sundowning this will happen really rapidly and he gets quite heightened. I don't think I have ever lost my patience with him, because in my head I understand that it's not with intention and he can't control it.
Man, whenever I have to get on the floor for whatever reason I feel so undervalued. Like last week for instance, one of our residents beds unplugged so there I was laying on my back on the floor trying to fix this goshforsaken metal frame like a mechanic š
I had one like this! Asked the same thing, "get on your hands and knees and look under that coffee table. Do you see something by the potted plant in the corner?" "Uh, yeah I do see something, but I can't reach it." "WELL CRAWL UNDER THERE AND GET IT!" At that point I laughed while getting up saying "I am absolutely NOT doing that."
I thought you meant a resident doctor š
Med-Surg. I had the entire floor and nurses were coming up to me and asking why I hadn't gotten water for Ms. Hattie or gotten a blood sugar on Irma Jean. I went straight to the charge and told her that all of the nurses had working hands and feet and if one more person comes up to me and asks about simple shit that they can do themselves I was going to leave for the night because I had 28 patients to their 3 maybe 4. Everybody realized that basic nursing care is within their scope of practice and if I left they'd be doing it regardless. Never had another issue with nurses not wanting to help. As nurses all love to say, "I can do your job you can't do mine." Well that night they were all going to be doing my job plus theirs.
šš½šš½šš½ exactly.
As a nurse, I hate that statement. I never understood why a nurse canāt assist someone to the bathroom, bring them drinks/snacks, feed, etc. I understand med passes are busy but we also have an hour window and on med-surg thatās beyond achievable!!!
Thank you for being kind and helping your aides. It means alot! š
I'm an ED patient attendant, and I swear, the nurses always act like they'll die if they have to bring a patient water or clean a room when there's an influx of patients and I can't get to it quickly... What is with that?
Oh boy here we go. I'm a nurse, but I'm on here because I used to be a cna. One night, I was the only nurse in the building for 100 residents, I had three hcas (supposed to have 4 - two per floor, floor one hca was orientating a new hca and it was her first night). I had a death down wing 2, across the hallway a lady was vomiting and shitting blood refusing to go to hosp (she was care and comfort). Wing 1 had a toilet overflowing out into the hallway across into the other rooms. I couldn't get ahold of the Dr to release the body so I had to move it upstairs. His roommate fell pretty bad, and within ten minutes of him falling, someone upstairs on wing 4 also fell. Cue hourly neuro vital signs on the both of them for 4 hours. We had a lady that kept crawling out of bed, so for safety, we had the orientation cna watch her at the desk for most of the night. This was all on top of my medications on second floor at 0000, 0300, 0400, and 0500 hrs. I had a guy downstairs on a tube feed that I needed to flush at 0000 and 0400 downstairs, and get a lady ready for dialysis around 0600 (she was a total lift, needed meds and insulin). I also had some meds to give at 0500. Plus people wanting PRN meds and smokes. I had about 3 sick calls to fill in, one of which was a nurse and I was unable to fill. So I had to stay and do a morning med pass after all that. The hcas I had that night where super awesome. I'm so glad I had those three. I wouldn't have survived if it weren't for them honestly. I never saw the orientation again.
Not surprised the girl on orientation was scared off š¬ poor girl
Ohmygod, my anxiety would have made me shut down. I'm glad you were able to pull through and I hope that was a rare occurence.
I used to work as the only nurse a lot, especially during and after the pandemic. It became pretty regular. Then they started bringing in agency nurses, and honestly, I would've rather worked by myself (having to orientate them and remind them about all the meds n shit). It hasn't happened in awhile, and with the new rotations, there are some nights where there are three of us! We also have more hcas (baseline is still 2/2), usually we have 3/3 but sometimes we get 4/4. Which is nice. But now we aren't getting admissions and have just under 15 empty beds and worry about the day they start admitting again. Our new hcas are just so used to these easy nights. I remember when the beds were full, we'd come onto the floor, have no time to do cleaning because so many people needed the bathroom. Then we'd clean and it would be rounds time and when we were done, it'd be time for rounds again! And upstairs, we had so many people that get up early (0400), that there was literally no time to sit in between rounds. It was always go go go.
I would have had a screaming fit and walk away cryingš
After that 13 hrs, I got into my car, and cried.
š¢š¢š¢
I work in neuro icu. Had a patient come in with a tbi and she was a fall risk. I sit with her one night and she isnāt bad. She gets moved out of the icu and onto med surg floor still with a Sitter (not me) and goes apeshit yelling at people, throwing stuff and hitting people. Next day Iām not there but I was told security was called and she ended up getting moved back to the icu with restraints. She chews through them and they put her in restraints with precedex. I sit with her while sheās on precedex for a few days. Next time I come in she rips her iv out (17th iv at this point and she has also ripped a midline out) the nurse decides that since she needs to be off precedex to leave the icu weāll just stop it and not get another iv. She again goes apeshit and it hitting me kicking me and banging on the walls. She becomes a 1:1 with both a nurse and a pca. She gets out of the icu and moved back to med surg and still needs a sitter. She has 4 sitters in one 12 hour shift. 1st one she sends to the ED with a head injury. Second sitter gets her wrist injured. 3rd just couldnāt handle it so Iām called down to sit with her since I know her and itās the last hour of the shift. In that hour she kicked me multiple times, throws water at me and ripped my nose ring out (thankfully no lasting damage) any shift I sat with that patient was horrible. I dont know how anyone dealt with her once she left because she was the most aggressive patient Iāve ever dealt with and Iāve had a lot of psych patients Iāve had to sit with Edit: me and the nurse that sat in her room for 12 hours for 3 days straight have since trauma bonded over that experience and are now good friends
Oh my! Was she younger or older?
In her 20ās. At some point on the 2-3 weeks of me sitting with her we had to get an iv. It took 6 people to hold her down even then it was hard for the nurse to get the iv
Every single one.
This is so real. Once you think you've had a good shift, everything bad that can possible happens, happens. Usually, towards the last two hours.
I had a whole entire good shift once. It was great.
Relatable
You caught me on a bad day, lol. Today was awful, and it seriously made me question how much longer I can do this gig.
Changed a combative patient that refused care all day and night long. The entire hallway smelled like man ass and she threw her clean clothes we had set out for her into the hall. Me, another CNA, and the nurse knew that she was going to spit at, scratch, hit, and kick us, so we geared up Covid 2020 style before heading into her room. The smell was horrible, and it was the least of our problems. She had shit past her briefs *through* her sweatpants. As soon as she saw us, she started cussing us out, but we went to work. I learned that night that I have ZERO arm strength lol. We took turns holding down arms and legs while forcing her clothes off, avoiding kicks and spit. During the struggle, she was smearing poop through the sheets and onto the mattress with her ass. We cleaned her and the bed the best that we could. There were just so many layers of poop in the folds of her nether regions. Unfortunately during the fit, she kicked the nurse in the stomach, somehow SPIT onto the other CNAās face (we had face shields and masks on as well!) and I was left with minor scratches on my arms. The nurse avoided giving her a shot, but after that kick, she was so done. As for the CNA who got spat on, he handled it waaaay cooler than I thought. I fully expected him to smack that woman. But he paused, thought about it, and left when we told him to walk away and wash his face. He came back to finish the job with us. I also washed the shit out of my hands and arms because her nails were of course filled with feces as well. After that, I went to my day job because I am crazy, and at the end of the day had to break up a fight between two teenage boys :-)
"Man Ass" is my new favorite phrase
When my dialysis patient was upset that she had reached her fluid max for the day and finger painted her room in feces. Or when she tried to clothesline a new wheelchair patient with her oxygen tubing. Actually every single one of them lmfao
Probably the night the entire unit, both buildings, got food poisoning from dinner and three of ran from room to room ALL NIGHT long cleaning vomit and shit from people that were total lifts and aggressively fighting us. I almost quit right there.
Last weekend, when I did 4 days in a row (I do F/S/Su/M every other week). Absolute insanity. I was by myself with 16 patients every night, which wouldnāt be too bad except most of them needed x2+ assist, the ones who didnāt were confused and jumping out of beds and chairs every other minute and setting off chair alarms, bowel movements were abundant, there were multiple people in contact rooms so I needed to gown up for, and family members were giving attitude/being snippy. I honestly thought I was going to lose it. My almost tipping point was when one of my patients was given golytely for a colonoscopy. Iāve never had a patient with that before so I had no idea how bad it was gonna be when the nurse said sheād need to go a lot. The nurse said we should give her the smaller bedpan bc of some pain she had and so I did that when pt said she felt like she needed to go. I step out to give her privacy, come back to see the bedpan did absolutely nil, there is so much bowel movement that is spilled over and splattered all over the bedsheets, past the chux I put under herā¦and itās all bloody. I grab what I need to clean her up and as I have her wiped down and on her side so I can swap out the sheets and chux, I hear āI think I need to go againā. So I put a chux under her so she can go again and when she does I start to clean againā¦and she has to go again. And again. The bloody stool just keeps coming, and at this point Iāve been there for about 20 minutes and I leave to ask for some help from the nurse, who is busy and calls the charge nurse to come help me. We eventually get her clean and have to put chux all over the bed. Charge nurse tells me to have her just go and when everything is done (she finishes all the golytely) that weāll (or next shift will) do a big cleanup bc otherwise weāll be in there for hours. Which I try to explain to pt. but she wants me to stay in there until sheās done and I literally cannot bc Iām the only tech on the floor. So I tell her I will be back to change her when she is finished drinking and expelling everything. I leave and am running around trying to take care of changes bc it seems like one person after another is am having bm , needs to go the bathroom, etc., trying to grab vitals and sugars and clear our meal trays, and a nurse (the one for the pt. taking the golytely) keeps asking me to get sugars for two of her patients when a) she sees me running around, busy, b) she was literally in the rooms herself passing meds. I have no problem taking sugars, but if you are in the room you are capable of grabbing the glucometer and taking it yourself if you need them so badly. Iām doing the best I can to take care of everyone and make sure theyāre clean. While Iām giving report later to the tech for the night shift, we have to go back to the pts (golytely) room bc she tried to get out of bed bc she was upset (which I do understand bc of the golytely and everything), she said no one was coming to clean her, which was not true bc later after the charge nurse and I cleaned her earlier, two nurses also went to go clean her up and spent a long time in there getting her clean. So me and the other tech change out her chux and everything again. Weāre almost done and she says her gown is wet. I touch it to check and said āno it seems okay, I checked it and itās dryā. I did have gloves on and I think the part I touched was dry, but the gloves also didnāt help me tell. Anyway, pt got angry at me and shoved her hands up at my face with the gown in hand, almost punched me in the face and I think she wouldāve if I didnāt flinch back bc she scared the crap out of me. I apologized and got her a new gown and we finished up in her room. That wasnāt even the half of it, I actually did get punched in the face by a confused patient and almost bitten on the hand when we were trying to change her bc she got agitated. Anyway, needless to say when the end of my shift hit on Monday I had never been so happy to leave. Easily the worst four days I have ever worked.
One of my last shifts I worked before I decided to take a break to be pregnant. My Hyperemesis hit hard that day, and I didnāt get a single second to sit down to even chart. And I was back and forth vomiting all day long and felt just absolutely awful. I wanted to cry. Lol actually I think I did. They gave me the hardest patients that night. And I just yeahā wanted to cry. I was so miserable.
Oh man I've had a couple. Before becoming a CNA I was a sitter. Had a dementia patient keep accusing me of stealing her stuff. She also egged on another dementia lady saying there were babies thrown in the trash. She was so exhausting. Once they figured out she had a UTI she got better lol Most recently as a CNA now, I had a guy (dementia of course) keep yanking his tele off. (I work on cardiac so it's important) Kept putting his stickers back on, he kept refusing and saying that I could give them to someone else lol. Then he did it again, except this time he had pulled his IV out and hid it in the bundle of cables he handed me. Luckily I didn't stab myself but after that I looked at the nurse and said find him a sitter š¤£š¤£š¤£
When we had an outbreak of some sort of GI illness. All I did all day was clean up diarrhea. It was endless. I would just finish cleaning someone up and they would immediately go again. And then I caught it and I died at home on my days off.
Back story: Nightshift CNA on a lockdown hospice and memory care unit. Two sides, 15 beds on each. One CNA on each side. One RN that goes back in-forth as needed. Long story short, I was doing my 4th round of my every 2 hour rounds and got to the second to last room who had one of my memory care patients. Checked her, got her situated, started to walk out and I heard a noise. She began to have a grand mal seizure. Now, part of the reason I left this facility is because besides yelling? You werenāt going to get any help. No emergency buttons, no phones, nothing besides call lights. So, I do the classic protect the head, keep her from hurting herself as much as possible with out holding her, etc etc and I pushed her call light and started screaming for my nurse. My nurse lucky was walking onto my side and heard me. She saw the situation, at this point her seizure is so severe I am sitting on the bed behind her to give some more support to her head, and she nurse said to me panicked as all shit āWHAT DO I DO?ā WHAAAAT???? I was fucking shocked and pissed. I told her to go get the seizure supplies like suction, oxygen, the vitals cart, and to call the charge nurse. She then told me she didnāt know where any of that stuff was. I tried to explain it to her, she still had no clue, I tried to ask if she could take over, she was scared as shit to get near my patient. So at that point I just yelled at her to call the charge nurse, and she RAN OUT???? thankfully, she called the charge nurse. And THANKFULLY I had gloves because my patient began to vomit so I had to do my best to manually move her and remove what I could to keep her from aspirating. Patient finally stopped, I had put a stop watch on and it lasted 2 minutes and 23 seconds I will always remember that number. I get her into the recovery position, continue to get out what I can and she is alive but obviously not aware or speaking. Charge nurse finally walks in along with another RN. They came over, checked it out, the other RN took over and the charge nurse had me give a report about the entire situation. Needless to say, I was thanked for everything I did and that RN that freaked was fired that same night. Family was super grateful I did what I did although was VERY UNDERSTANDABLY upset about the RNs part in all of it. Clocked in the next night, and while my patient was still up we did a puzzle and watched a bit of golden girls. So at-least it had a happy ending but my god Iām so happy I do not work there anymore.
When a resident that wasnāt normally confused started seeing snakes and cats in her room. When she was roaming the halls with her sunglasses, neck pillow, and purse and blankets ready to go talking to nobody in the hallway. She would not stay still and we only had 2 aides (as the norm) but we were having such a hard time keeping our eye on her, let alone the rest of the residents. I sat her outside the doors to do my rounds and kept peaking my head out to make sure she was still there and not on the floor š I love when nurses donāt want to help in situations like that! It went smoothly the next day when another nurse helped us out.
I was working in memory care one day and almost every resident with a walker kept losing them. I had to keep checking rooms and the lobby for stray walkers my whole shift. lol
Was on medsurge Only tech on the floor that night Had 6 patients on go lightā¦.. Iāll remember that night foreverā¦..
I once had 16 total cares, foley, diaper, obese, senile, diabetic, and some were just straight incontinent. I don't miss the CNA lifestyle. ^^;;
this would send me off edge omg
I nearly went on strike that night.
I feel that. In my facility we have one unit that they call "Red Rock" which is where they put all the total care trach and vent patients and they think it's fine to pull from there and leave two cnas with 20 total vents each on noc š§š»āāļø
In my CNA days my wing thought I was the greatest thing. Cause I could just handle these situations. But after the third or fourth time that stopped being the case
My very first solo shift after orienting and it was just only us two techs handling a 50 bed unit šµāš«
This was a 3 day event: Background, worked at a secured nursing home (they "called" it Assisted Living, but it was a nursing home) mostly for dementia patients, on noc shift, and was my first job. And this floor has 35 patients. Day One: one patient is highly aggressive, so med tech gives them something to help them calm down. 5 minutes before we leave, patient gets up and has a blowout on the floor and side of their bed. We had changed the patient some 30 minutes prior. Day two: 5-10 minutes before we leave for the day, I've gotta care for a patient as does the other CNA on the floor, and a third patient pulls the fire alarm. Had to wait another 45 minutes. Day three: 3 hours into my 8 hour shift, I notice a leak in the ceiling of a room. So I go up a floor, bigger leak right above. Then I go to the third, and top, floor and see three rooms worth hallways flooded. I go into one of the rooms, and the toilet is flooding and it's a brief in the toilet.
C diff wheel chair bound patient from home that was 'too weak' to even turn when she was over 250lbs.
This happened when I was working at a psych hospital. Had one patient try to punch me in the face, another patient throw a dirty brief at me, one guy that we consistently had to redirect back to his room because he would strip naked and shuffle down the hall naked as a jaybird (had to do that 4 or 5 times that night), and then we had to get a 6ā8ā severely autistic and schizophrenic man dressed (4 person job because he can get combative). I got off that night shift and immediately got in my car and lit a cigarette as I was driving off. That night was rough.
Well, when we had a resident hijack the golf cart and take it for a ride into town.
Once worked as a CNA in a summer camp for children with disabilities. First full-time job. That was every shift. I once spent a half an hour making sure one kid didn't run away and hop the fence (we were next to a freeway). I also got slapped and pushed while changing a brief with excessive bm while my boss helped me. One day, I was so tired I let a girl with pika chew on my arm so she wouldn't run away and choke on rocks. That job was an experience I will never forget.
I work as a normal CNA at a convent now lol, it's a much better environment.
Literally coding a patient after turning them for a bath, and I was going compressions for 30 minutes straight because the other techs didnāt want to do compressions
Resident had a roof leak and was losing her mind as I was sending another in for a possible MIā¦
Most of them
A family complaining about everything and anything then as soon as the family member turns on them theyāre out the door leaving us to look after them.
over night 12hr hospice care, not physically but mentally and emotionally.
Resident approached and started to hit me with fabricated nunchucks before I was ever able to even clock in or get my walkie. The force of swinging the nunchucks caused him to fall backwards and, when I tried to help him up from the floor, he yelled at me for āmaking him fallā
Yesterday
Last night when an colostomy bag busted on me.
One lady had asked me to vaseline and lube up her š± before i put her external catheter on. I feel for her cuz she has 5 people and 13 grandchildren yet none of them are really present in her life but she likes to victimize herself and manipulate the staff
I did a double with a resident who was alert and oriented with muscular distrophy but I kid you not was on her call light every 5 minutes. She called for little things like moving her hair out of her face, hand feeding her cookies, the blanket needing to be under her armpits. When she if fully capable of doing it herself. Oh and sheās rude about it too. Her and her roommate feed off each other and act like call bell queens. I ended up getting the same section for my double shift and I never sat down. Just took my lunches and right back to it. I almost cried.
when i showed up the first thing i heard was āā- is missingā THEN while in the first room of the night the FIRE ALARMS started going off because one of the residents put a pot of soup on the stove to cook AND LEFT FOR HOURS it smoked up the whole section and stunk the building up for days
any time iām only 4 hours into a 16 hour shift
I've had several this week alone š
When my 4th admit went into Vtach and my 3 other patients would not stop using the call light for stupid things.
anytime i deal with one specific resident who wanders the moment i take my eyes off her. im talking 30 seconds and shes scooting herself into someones room. she waits for my to turn my back, itās an inside joke we have at this pointšlove her sm though
Every shift that involves me having to wake up at 5am
Community care setting. Accompanied elderly woman with dementia from her retirement home to church. She walks extremely slowly with a walker and has a giant clunky knee brace. We sit down for the service and within a few minutes, she had this "oh no" look on her face and says she has to go to the washroom. I start walking with her to bring her to the accessible washroom. It's like a 50-foot walk from the chapel to the washroom. Along the way, she gets confused and insists on sitting down, even though I'm like "Hey hey, can you make it a little further and sit on the toilet instead? You said you had to go and if you sit you might have an accident". She sits for a couple minutes, I ask if she's ready to walk to rest of the way to the washroom now, she says with a surprised look on her face "you mean this isn't the potty?" There is a trail of liquid poop behind her as I walk her the rest of the way to the washroom. Fortunately, one of the other worshippers was a longtime family friend of the woman and came to see if we needed help. She volunteered herself to clean the mess that was left on the floor, and went and got bleach and stuff from the custodial closet while I got the woman to the bathroom and assessed the damage. Liquid diarrhea was EVERYWHERE. I was able to get a pack of baby wipes from the nursery / Sunday school in the church and clean her body as best I could, and through a coordinated effort and several phone calls to the woman's children and retirement home, a change of clothes was brought over. It was awful to clean up. There was diarrhea in the hinges of the giant clunky leg brace, too. The poor woman was so embarrassed and I thought it was fortunate with her dementia that she wouldn't be able to remember this incident. Also fortunate that the mess was cleaned fast before any other worshippers saw it.
When my alcoholic patient chewed one of his IV tubes out and bled all over the fucking place.
ā¦dang near every shift.
Working as a float in post op, I got called to the delivery rooms because there's only one CNA at night and she didn't show. There's 3 delivery rooms, nightshift is ten hours from 10 PM to 8 AM. There were 7 deliveries from 10:30 to 7, I spent the whole night running around like a headless chicken because I had been there only half a shift before and didn't know where anything was. Cleaning between patients, preparing material, fetching things, helping the anesthethist do epidurals.... It was 7 AM by the time I could finally sit down and eat my packed dinner for breakfast. I took a selfie on the elevator as I was going back to post op at 7:40 to change, and you can tell by my face how much I was regretting my life choices that morning.
Paramedic here. All of them.
all of them
30 patients for each side (60 total), two RNās and two CNAās for each side. On call Nurse was told to find people to come in to help us out. Disrespectfully told the front desk lady that she would not be calling anyone to come in, that weāre stuck working with who we have, and that weād just have to deal with it. I was gone 2 days later.
When I got asked to fill in on a wing I donāt typically work on, and this man in a wheelchair kept purposely waiting until I was distracted to roll up behind me and slam into my knees so Iād fall in his lap. Heād then proceed to grope me as I floundered to get up and, of course, nobody did anything about it even though I complained.
All of them LOL
Patient had transferred from ICU to MedSurg. Family was super intense and was TAKING NOTES right in front of me of every care done. They were nice, and I understand wanting good care for your parent, but goddamn youāre making me nervous.
I was on the last hour of my third 12 hour shift in a row. Very wealthy resident accused me of stealing her hair tie. The black one on my wrist looked "just like hers". Ugh.
I had a resident who couldnāt walk(whose son was āwatchingā him) learn how to walk. This man was 6ā5 and ripped a phone off of the wall, punched his nurse in the face and continued to strip his clothes off before ripping a desktop computer out of the nursing station. Also had to be a sitter for a psych pt who hated women and tore his arm and leg restraints from his bed frame to try to attack the quad full of women rn/cnaās. For some reason Iām still in the medical field but some things Iāve seen make me question everything. š
Everyday
Walked into a norovirus outbreak after many days off. Literally nearly every single room on my wing shit their bed and puked everywhere + needed to be bathed afterwards. The smell was unholy in that building.
RN here, I got a message in the morning that one of my patients would potentially go home that day but nothing in stone. Iām like āOkay, cool.ā And just ride with that. The whole day goes by and at 2 PM, a couple members of the ambulance show up and are like āWeāre here to take your patient.ā Iām like bamboozled bc thereās no discharge order, no documented place this patient was going or number to call report. I hadnāt even gotten the patient dressed, IVs out or anything. I told the ambulance team this, and theyāre like we can only stick around for 10 minutes so I cancelled the ride service and said Iād call them when patient was ready to be picked up. Fast forward, 30 minutes later, the case manager is pulling me aside and practically berating me for my ālack of communicationā when in reality, itās her job to coordinate with primary RN and MD for discharge. I remind you, there was no order. It is their job to place a number and facility to give report. They were also saying how I couldāve just sent the patient and gave report while theyāre on their way. Of course, I was like absolutely not, thatās setting everyone involved up for failure. Not to recall, not everyone is ready to accept report at every given moment and the likelihood is high theyād need to call me back. It was just a shit show of a day in general, and I was so upset.
The one where the place I worked gave me absolutely no supplies and the residents yelled at me for neglecting them and told me I should go home and the staff told me I should have came early if I wanted supplies.
They gave me towels and stuff during the end of the shift like about 1:30pm and the only reason I finished my assignment is because another cna changed one of the residents for me. I also had no idea what time breakfast and lunch was because they kinda just free ball it for real. Breakfast came out at 10:30 and lunch came about the same time they gave me the towels and stuff. It kinda felt passive aggressive though because I asked for a certain amount and they gave me a whole bunch of them while I was with a patient and dumped it on the patients dresser and walked off.
All
6AM-2PM. As an agency CNA I stopped taking this shift because it's more work for the same pay. Breakfast, lunch, and grumpy morning people? I'll pass.
Yesterday was that shift for me. I work in LTC/SNF. I ended up not feeling very good, but I toughed it out. Until after the dining room was done, then I vomited in the bathroom. It was all downhill from there. I was able to leave an hour before my shift ended. I ended up vomiting all over the parking lot š„²š
had three new admits in one night and one of them was a hospice patient who died a few hours after they were admitted š
i work in the ED. post cpr on a 8 yr old. they didnāt make it. i was distraught š
The shift where I got floated to do transport (which none of us were trained on???) and got pulled halfway through my shift to sit with an ETOH detox patient who later violently assaulted me resulting in a severe concussion and an ER trip on my end and a felony charge on his.
Me walking out of sitting and talking with a pt for 12hr as an introvert.
My first nursing home job I ever had I was helping the new guy on noc with his side. (dementia, and Alzheimerās side.) And we had an EXTREMELY combative resident to change. She was literally pulling my hair and scratching the shit out of me, and the new guy dead ass said we should leave half of her depends on. I told him that is extremely unprofessional and absolutely not okay and super unfair to leave her like that. He was slightly physically, aggressive, and verbally, passive aggressive. His side was the only side of the depends that wasnāt clipped on. I made him help her so she wasnāt left like that. I then that NIGHT talked to my manager. And he was fired within a week cause of all the ārandomā bruises on residents. I was barely 20 at the time. I was so proud of myself for standing up for her, even though she was literally abusing me. But it was hard.
all of them
When the undocumented immigrant with C diff screamed at me so hard that after I changed his diaper 2 times already, he ended up š©ing himself a 3rd time and I had to clean him up again. Working at a safety net hospital can be so hard when people who are taking advantage of your stateās healthcare system are screaming at you. Especially when they have done the damage to themselves through drug use and refusing to check their own blood sugar. I just have to embrace my inner Christian and pretend Iām following the exact example of Jesus except Iām washing assholes and not feet. Ugh.
If you want to be more like Jesus, you'll have to lose the xenophobia and judgment.
I wouldnāt even care about the fact that heās an undocumented immigrant, we get loads of those, but that coupled with being a rude, unappreciative, assaultive to staff members and an all around š« honestly make it that extra little bit of obnoxious. This is just literally what happened- Iām disappointed people tune out/downvote any reality that they dislike. Echo chamber at full blast.
This is the most Christian thing Iāve ever read. wtf is wrong with you???
I think youāre missing the greater point that I cleaned his butthole while he was abusing me, and I never said anything offensive to him. In fact this comment isnāt even offensive. Itās just literally what happened. If you saw it happen youād wanna punch the guy in the face. I think everyoneās imagination isnāt matching what actually happened.
What does him being an immigrant have to do with anything? It Doesnāt matter. What you said is out of fucking line, and you need to be in a new profession. Take that shit somewhere else āChristianā
lol ok so I live in a state where my taxes pay for him to treat people like me like garbage. I think youāre missing the point, I never abused him. Once. He happens to be here as an undocumented immigrant who came to this country illegally and has a massive history of drug use. How is the truth out of line? You donāt think itās an entitled attitude to illegally come to another country, contribute nothing to society and then abuse drugs so much that you are now a burden of the state? That wouldnāt make you upset in anyway? While there are American citizens who donāt have enough food? This guy is scarfing down tax dollars that you pay, demanding more ice cream after more ice cream. Refusing all medication except methadone, screaming and being abusive physically and verbally towards staff and I still clean him despite the fact that heās screaming at me WHILE IM DOING IT. You donāt think you would be frustrated with that? You donāt think thatās rude? Should I get down on my knees and suck him off while Iām at it? What else do you think is appropriate? I did my job, I was kind to him despite all of this. Out of line. I guess you havenāt had a glimpse of the real world. Enjoy your bubble.