I DON'T GET PEOPLE!

As I have stated before, I work at a hospital. I get so many really nice patients, and I get crazy and rude ones too! I get ones that think we are their personal servants! What gives?
Some people think that we are there to change all their babies diapers. Um, Nooooo! We are there for patient care. If you don't know how to change a diaper, we will be more than happy to show you. It's just that we don't have time to change every diaper, every time. If you had a c-section, and are still hooked up to an IV, catheter, and a pulse-ox and you need to have your baby handed to you because no one else is in the room to help you, NO PROBLEM! We continuously have people call out for the most stupid things! I don't have time to be at your beck and call! We have to prioritize our work. You are not our only patient! As a CNA, I can get up to 15 patients at a time. I cannot be in all of your rooms at the same time. I do the best that I can. One time I had a patient that when I would walk into her room, she would ask me "So, what are you doing?" Um, working! She was nice, really! It's just I was so busy that I didn't have time to make small talk. I was not rude, I told her what I was doing.
Please, don't get me wrong, we have more good and nice patients than not! It's just that the ones that aren't, really make an impression on me! We often refer to the ones that hit the call light often for something as "needy" patients! Are you one of them? If so, STOP IT! If you need a few things, don't ask me for one thing, have me go get it, and when I get back, ask me for something else. Again I will go get it and come back. And you remember a third time, you need something else. So AGAIN I have to go and come back! Can you say FRUSTRATING!
Here is another thing! It is so irritating when parents have no clue about how to strap their baby in the car seat! Do you not know that you are pregnant for 9 months! Seems like plenty of time to learn how. OK, so you get a car seat for your baby shower at about 8 months pregnant. You still have one month to learn, right? I have had patients that leave the car seat in the box and pull it out when they are ready to go home from the hospital. Can you at least read the directions before asking for help? We are not certified! We cannot leagally be the last one to touch the straps. I can tell you how to do it, but that's it. To be certified, you have to take a special class that is 40 hours long! I have taken a class on how to properly strap babies in, but I am NOT certified. My class was only 6 hours. You can go to a Fire Station and have a fireman help you but you need to make an appointment first because not every fireman is certified. Believe it or not, it is not the hospital's responsibility to make sure you baby is in the car seat properly. As the parent, it is your job. If a hospital does it for you, it's only done as a courtesy. Where I work, The CNA's take the patients out in a wheelchair ourselves. When we go to your room to take you out, and find that you need help with the car seat, it takes us even more time. I have been literally off the floor for 30 minutes before, taking out and helping patients, stopping at admitting because they forgot to give the information for the birth certificate, and still need to make their co-pay. In the meantime, I have been paged several times to do other things. How would that person like it if they needed something and I was off the floor with someone else for as long as my lunch break is for!
Believe it or not, I really like doing my job. I just would like people to use a bit more common sense and have more consideration for others!
I have just as many gripes about co-workers but, that make for a different post!
If you have any car seat questions, feel free to ask me. I will do my best to help. If I don't know, I will say so. Just remember, I'm not certified!
So what gets you fired up at work?

Lazy Day!

I have absolutely done nothing today except lie around in bed most of the day. I've been up long enough to go to the bathroom and get something to eat! I'm sure this is due to the fact that I've worked the last 4 days, 12 hour shifts, on my feet most of the time. I am a CNA at a hospital on the Postpartum floor (moms and babies). We have been so busy and I have been run ragged all 4 days! Work will be a completely different post! My husband was nice and on his way home from work, bought me a blended coffee drink from The Human Bean. Maybe caffeine will help me wake up enough to clean the house, LOL!
My kids have been home for Winter Break (I still like to call it Christmas Vacation, I'm not really an extreme PC person). They have done nothing to help me around the house. They think that I can work all day and come home and supply them dinner and clean my house. Eric always tells me, jokingly, "It's your house, you clean it!" and I remind him (in the most loving motherly way) how soon he will be homeless if he keeps talking to me that way! He is 20 so I can boot him out without CPS paying me a visit, LOL!

Christmas is over!

I survived another holiday! We went to my sister's house for Christmas on Christmas Eve. My family always celebrates on Christmas Eve! Why? I have no idea! We have always done it that way. We always had dinner and then opened all the gifts on Christmas Eve and then, when the kids were little, Santa would show up after they were asleep and leave gifts. When the kids wake up on Christmas Morning, they were surprised by the gifts and items in their stockings. It is sort of like having another Christmas for them (or my sister and me when we were little). We had all day to enjoy the gifts and have more food and goodies.
My dad was there and he is not doing so good with his health. He's 74 years old. He chants "No, no, damnit, please no" and continues about what he was doing. A minute or two later, he says the same thing over. And this goes on and on! He forgot that I am his daughter. He told me that no matter what happens to him to remember that my grandpa loves me. I asked him "Grandpa Paul?" He said "No, me!" I told him that I am his daughter and then he looked confused for a minute and he said "Oh that's right, I had Sheryl and Shelly". Then he apologized. It is so sad to see him this way.
He used to be a police man for well over 30 years. He taught my sister and I how to shoot guns. He taught other people how to shoot after he retired when he worked at Shooter's World...a shooting range. He is very fincanially smart and has never hurt for anything. His one major flaw is that he drinks...heavily! He has always drank but over the years it has become worse. He will not quit and he says that he is not a drunk. Drinking whiskey "helps" his back pain. It probably does along with all the prescription pain pills he takes and the beer he drinks. He can hardly walk from all the pain and alcohol he consumes. He is truly in denial about being an alcoholic. It's so sad!
On a positive note, the kids were all satisfied with their gifts. Christian was so happy with Guitar Hero and Left 4 Dead. I also got him other things but those were the major things. Amber loved her comfortor and her new digital camera (I will be using it, LOL)! It was nice!
I still need to figure out more on this blogging thing but I worked today and for the next 3 days, 12 hour shifts so it will be slow going for me.

Busy Today

So I thought I was going to have time to figure more things out on my blog, HA! I cleaned my house and took Amber and her boyfriend, Kevin to the mall. I wanted to be sneaky and buy her a comforter for her bed that she wants at Hot Topic of Jack Skellington but, they were out of the one she wanted. They had 4 of them with Sally on it. She wants the one with only Jack! Later I went to another mall with Christian to see if that Hot Topic had it. Strike Two!!! The cashier, who coincidentaly was named Amber, was very helpful and called other stores. Bingo! She found a store with 5! It was 8PM and I had one hour to find this mall that I've never been to and find parking! This mall was about 11 miles away. Not too far but there is a lot of traffic (probably due to the fact that I live in a "warm" state and we now have all the snow birds). I went to 3 different malls today and to the grocery store.

I'm waiting until my kids fall asleep to wrap the gift for Amber and one for Christian. They are both big and will be hard to hide. Christian got Guitar Hero World Tour. The whole thing, drums, guitar, mic, and game. He doesn't think he's getting it because it's too expensive, but I did get it and boy will it be a surprise! He also wants a game called Left 4 Dead. He's getting that too but it won't be from me, my mom got it for him. Those are the only two things he wants this year.

I usually don't have any problems buying my kids Christmas gifts but this year, Rachael and Eric are very hard to buy for. Thank Goodness for gift cards, LOL!

To Everyone...Have a Merry Christmas! I won't be posting again until after Christmas.

Still Learning

I've been playing around with my blog and I am starting to learn how to put pictures on there. I like butterflies, Jack Skellington, and the movie Elf...so I put pictures of them on there. I haven't been playing around too long as I have worked almost 13 hours today. I should have more time tomorrow, after I clean my house. It's always a battle to keep the house clean with several people in the house having different schedules (eating, sleeping, and getting ready for work or school).

I have an 11 year old son named Christian, a 14 year old daughter named Amber, a 20 year old son named Eric, and my daughter, Rachael, will be 19 tomorrow (December 23rd). I also have my husband, Eric's friend Dennis (living in my house), and both of my daughters boyfriends, friends, and friends of friends here all the time!

Kids seem to want to hang out at my house a lot! That can be a good and bad thing! My food gets eaten quite quickly but, at least I know where my kids are, who they're with, and what they are doing. Don't get me wrong, they do go out! With that said, I am usually the taxi for Amber and all of her friends.

Now that I brought that up, WHY am I the main taxi for the kids? Her friends parents rarely ever drive them anywhere! I don't mind most of the time but, come on, can we share the rides sometimes? Amber has learned how to take the city bus with her friends because their parents won't take them anywhere. Why do these parents not care on how their son/daughter gets to places? Am I the one with the word "sucker" written on my forehead? Maybe the parents know I will do it most of the time (when I'm not working). I don't know if I will ever know the answer to that!

Just Learning!

Hello Everyone! I am new to blogging so please bear with me as I learn how to blog!

I have wanted to do this for a long time but didn't know how to do it! Thank You Lisa for helping me get this far. I'm sure I'll have many more questions, LOL!

For a while, I will be blogging about my family, friends, and work. As I become better at this I will try to blog about other things as well!