I'm injured

I've bruised a rib - if I'm being a drama queen I say I've fractured a rib. Son and I were having a playful rough and tumble on Friday night. We still have these from time to time. It is son who initiates them. I think he is trying to assert himself as stronger than me. I engage with the desire to maintain my role of 'top dog'. He is getting too big for that and I am getting too old. A knee or elbow landed in my stomach and great pain followed. It was manageable over the weekend, but on Sunday night I engaged in some too strenuous activity and today I am uncomfortable most of the time and in pain some of the time.
It has brought the sub-conscious to the surface as I've become aware of muscles I use unaware. Coughing and laughing are painful. One interesting context I notice it is driving. Getting in and out of the car is no mean feat. Turning the corner in the car, I'm aware of the inertia of my body that my muscles normally take care of while I concentrate on the road.
I hope it'll be better soon as I had to call in sick for my shift at the nursing home tonight, and think I'll probably have to do the same tomorrow night.
In the meantime, I'm making the most of the drugs!

End of Financial Year

We had a number of new chairs arrive today for our meeting room at work. A number of new handsets for mobile phones are being distributed as well……
Oh yes, it’s the end of the financial year…..use it or lose it.
Imagine if all the left over amounts of money could be kept and used for important things in subsequent financial years. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of that before!

Communication

I’m finding the communication with my colleagues at the Nursing Home a tad frustrating!

A couple of scenarios:

“Pass me that please” she said, her hands busy attending to a resident and her head down.
“That?’ I reply
“Yes that.”
“The blanket? The towel? The pillow?”
“The towel”
“Sure I can pass you the towel”




“I’ll grab this one and you grab that one”, she said, taking hold of the one and only pillow in sight.
‘That one would be…?”
“His head”
“Oh….ok!”

I don’t think I’m expecting a particularly high level of communication….but maybe I am.

Wearing History

I’m rarely in attire that calls for cufflinks. I do however have one shirt that calls for them. I was wearing it a while ago when I went to the theatre. I was wearing this particular shirt a couple of Christmases ago and I was talking with my parents about how cufflinks would suit it, but I only had one pair of jade cufflinks which wouldn’t have gone with the shirt. Mum told Dad to get out his array of cufflinks. My Dad is not one for putting on a show as far as dress goes. He dresses for comfort rather than looks – a point of contention for Mum and has been for all their married life. His collection of cufflinks is quite small and I don’t think he’s worn a pair for over 40 years. Most of them were typical of the 50s and 60s – large and garish. He did however have two pairs (pictured) that were simple and elegant. They belonged to his father. One pair is silver and the other gold. The gold pair have my grandfather’s initials on them. As you can see, they are two flat pieces of metal joined together by a chain. They are not particularly easy to put on, but once on I like their look. I also like the fact that I am wearing some family history. I’m imagining that my grandfather might have got one of the pairs, perhaps the engraved pair, for his 21st birthday. That would make them over 80 years old.
I like that!

Life Is A Balance

Life is very full at the moment. It’s all good stuff, but I do need to make sure that I am able to give attention to the important things in life. I’ll be doing two regular shifts at the nursing home, with other shifts available at times if I want them. I have my ‘regular’ job, which is two and a half days a week. I’m on semester break at present, but will be back at Uni in about 3 weeks. I’m only doing one subject this semester, so will be able to cover all that in one day. I want to make sure that I am not so distracted as not to be aware of how things are going for son and to be able to ‘hang out’ with him. I also want to ensure that I have time and attention to give to my relationship (don’t tell him I described it thus!), which is many months strong now and going in a direction I like and want to maintain.
So as I said, it’s all good stuff, but does take some balancing.

Where will we end up?

I have recently started a new (additional) job. I have started work as a Personal Care Worker at an Aged Care Facility. The reason for this has been two fold. 1) I need more money! 2) Doing my nursing part time, the time gaps between my clinical placements is so much longer. I have a fear that the next time I’m in a hospital doing a placement, I will take too long to get used to ‘handling’ patients again. This work will help me to ‘keep my hand in’ so to speak. Personal care work is good basic nursing, providing me with valuable experience.
I have to say it has been confronting on various levels. The very environment is confronting. Spending time in a large living/dining area that is quite noisy as residents are chatting, yelling, singing, just sitting blankly, playing with food, playing with themselves, undressing and dressing themselves is an assault on the senses. The smells of a nursing home are particularly assaulting. All smells, those of things that go into the body and those that are expelled from the body, all seem to merge into the same odour.
Seeing humans being treated as objects is confronting. This sounds critical, and on some level it is, however there are times when that’s what I feel I am doing when I’m washing and changing severely demented people whose limbs are as stiff as a board, or waving about like a brandishing weapon.
It is confronting to think that this is how many people end their lives, herded together with similar aged people whose worlds have diminished to what is happening within a couple of metres of them. (This is particularly so for the man in his late 40s who is a resident there due to his MS). It is confronting to think that maybe that’s how I might end my days, or more urgently, how my parents might end their lives.
The very experience of starting a new job, learning where things are kept, trying to remember other staff’s names, learning the ‘culture’ of the workplace, has been exhausting. It has been nearly nine years since I started a new job in a new organization. I haven’t been a newbie for so long. Being the introvert that I am, it comes at some cost.
I make it sound like it’s all negative, but it’s not. I am slowly finding my place, how I relate with the residents in a way that I feel is right for me, how to wind down after a shift…….and I’ve had my first payslip which helps greatly!!

I'd Love To

I've not been in this exact situation, but I have been in situations where I've wondered who someone is talking to.

Found on Queer Humor Tube