Mission Possible

I am still humming the theme. Now you are too =o)
This week I had my first shift in my second facility. By far the easiest location to get to, bonus! The thumbprint identification turned into a whole hand scan. It is beyond cool. I feel so sneaky when I clock in and out.

Hand scan aside, I love this facility. The building is old, and huge. There's a locked wing for dementia and behavioral patients that I can't wait to get into. Not a surprise, I'm the one that's been talking about driving the 45 minutes to the State Hospital. I love psych, almost as much as trauma.

I had a lot of rooms to take care of, but the nurses were much better about spreading my rooms down one hall so that I wasn't running between 5 sections all night. When I reported on my patients, the nurses didn't look down on me, but were truly thankful for me updating them on skin conditions. The nurse’s attitudes were so different in this location compared to the other facility I work in. They were all friendly, happy to show me to the breakroom when I got there, and genuinely welcoming. The best part and what showed me how much these nurses care was dinner. Almost all residents eat in the dining room, and it is a full room. All the CNAs pass trays, drinks and feed residents. I sat on a swivel stool between two ladies and turned back and forth. I got lucky and only had to really carry on one conversation, more on that later. All of a sudden, there's a flash of ceil blue going from table to table. It's one of the nurses. She's feeding residents. The charge nurse stayed at the nurse’s station, and all other nurses were in the dining room either passing meds or feeding. It was truly a team effort. And the way everyone moved around it was like a dance.

I fed one resident about 75% of her meal. It was one of my most difficult meals because she didn't want to eat, she wanted to talk. She was in late stage Alzheimer’s and hard to follow, but we had a great time. Once I couldn't get her to eat anymore, another CNA traded me spots and got her to finish the rest of the meal. She finished eating so she could have someone to talk to. My other resident's family showed up half way through dinner. Which to be honest was a little awkward for me when the little boy was trying to tell Grandma about his camping trip and all Grandma could say was "kill, kill, kill". He didn't seem worried by what she was saying, but was obviously irritated that she kept interrupting his story. Cute kid.

I'm working day shift in that facility tomorrow, even though the shift starts earlier than in the other facilities I'm super excited to get in there and take care of some residents. Plus I love seeing the screen say "Handprint Identified".