Day 3 - embiggening the common man

What a way to wrap up your week. It actually ended on a very positive note. I have a completely new level of respect for what a CNA has to do on a daily basis.......it definitely isn't a cakewalk. Some of the students I was working on the floor with lamented how much break time the CNAs seemed to take, but I wouldn't begrudge them a minute of it. I spent the last few days hauling around plastic bags full of human excrement, changing diapers, washing bedridden patients (including in their nether regions......and then applying salves to said places) and generally seeing a lot of people with only the prospect of continuing deterioration ahead of them. And yet, as I was walking down the haul with one of the aforementioned bags filled with the waste products of a freshly changed colostomy bag, I couldnt help but feel a little giddy. Not because I was thrilled at that moment to be doing something that, 3 months ago I wouldnt have imagined myself doing in my wildest, and most displeasing, dreams, but because it didnt make my body shudder in revulsion......in fact it didnt bother me at all. I was much MUCH more discomfited by the thought of dragging my bleary behind out of bed before the sun chose to. Not only did the whole process not bother me, I actually felt good to have helped out. Over the long term, I think working at a place like a long term care facility would grind you down, but in the short term it was really a good way to get our feet wet.

On to acute care next week.

Sidebar: still no condo and now renters for the house. Might have to look at RVs.