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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

 

back to back to school

So today was the first day of class... and I am so happy to be back. Classmate M* commented to me that she also felt like she was already behind, even though school hadn't started yet, and that made me feel so much better. Honestly, it was almost like the summer hadn't even happened - we all just clicked back into place and laughed a lot and hugged each other and asked good questions and generally are getting right back into the swing of things. Classmate A* has already started talking up her margaritas. :)

This will be an intense quarter - although we only have one block of classes (theory, skills lab, clinical), we cover a lot of material. I'm still wavering between feeling like I can rise to the challenge and being scared to death. I'm most nervous about clinical - I was comfortable walking into a nursing home last quarter because of my previous work experience as a CNA, but I know nothing about hospitals. I've never even been admitted to a hospital. The one time I've set foot in the hospital where my clinical rotation will be was when I went to see brand-new baby Fish last October. And I'm guessing I won't get to hold a cute baby the entire time I'm there for clinical.

But hey, how hard can it be? Plenty of other people have made it through this program and succeeded, so I'm sure I can too. Lord knows I have already dealt with some challenging things at work - I'm guessing my chances of being slugged or pooped on are significantly lower at clinical!

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best compliment of the year

Most of my coworkers at the Old People Hotel are not white, and are not originally from the United States. The largest group are Ethiopian or Eritrean, with a few Kenyans and a handful of Filipinos. I was chatting last week with one of the Ethiopian women, in fact, I was thanking her for helping me with Bedridden Lady. She waved off my thanks and said she was glad to help. Then she blurted out that "we have been talking about it [and by we I'm guessing she meant the Ethiopian crew] and we agreed you are the only white girl who really works."

Heh. You never know when that Midwestern work ethic will be noticed.

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Estrella Soaps

Estrella Soaps

I bought five bars of soap from this local soapmaker at Bumbershoot. I really, really like their stuff. It's all-natural and even vegan. I love how good they smell and how well they lather up!

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

 

back to school

Tomorrow is the first day of class for my second quarter of nursing school. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of school, seeing all my classmates, and getting swept up in the whole nursing school experience again. I hope that my coping skills are better this quarter - last quarter I did well academically, but our house was a disaster, we ate a lot of takeout, I got no exercise and gained 10 pounds. I've created a daily schedule to try to combat those problems this quarter - including class time, study time, plenty of exercise time, specific housecleaning tasks each day, and time to cook and eat decent food. I'm putting a lot of emphasis on getting stuff ready the night before - if I put out my workout clothes and the clothes I'm going to wear to class out, then I will have time to work out and get dressed before class. If I pack my lunch the night before, I'll have something healthy to eat during the day. If I pack my backpack the night before, I won't forget an important book or assignment. Now let's just hope I don't fall asleep over my textbooks at 6 PM and screw it all up.

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Saturday, September 23, 2006

 

book report: Deja Dead

Deja Dead
by Kathy Reichs

I love the TV show "Bones" and decided to read the series of books on which the show is based. "Deja Dead" is the only one I've read so far. I was put off at first by the noticeable differences between the characters in the book and the characters on the TV show - but once I managed to stop thinking of the main character, Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, as the same person from the show, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I know some people find these books boring because of all the forensic detail that Reichs includes, but I liked that and found it interesting. Also, the plotline in this book was *way* more exciting than anything from the TV show. Interestingly, the Bones character has been made younger and actually weirder for the television show. In the book, she is in her 40s, separated from her husband, with a teenage daughter off at college. In the TV show, she is in her 30s, never married with no kids, and quite socially awkward. Interesting choice.

Anyway, I will most likely read the rest of this series next summer, when school is not in session!

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book report: Motherless Brooklyn

Motherless Brooklyn
by Jonathan Lethem

I've read some other books by Jonathan Lethem. And I can see from my previous book reports that I wasn't quite sure how I felt about them. Well, I finally found a Lethem book that I liked.

Lionel Essrog is a self-taught private investigator with a raging case of Tourette's Syndrome. He's also the narrator of this book, which makes for a very interesting read. I found Lethem's portrayal of Lionel's disorder to be completely believable and compelling. The title of the story comes from Lionel's childhood - he is an orphan who lived at a "school for boys" with other orphans. Lionel and a few of his classmates take up with an older guy, Frank Minna, who uses them for (really) odd jobs and eventually drags them into his world of petty crime, under the cover story of running a car service. (They answer the phones, "No cars!") Minna refers to the boys collectively as "motherless Brooklyn." When Minna is murdered, Lionel decides to investigate his death and try to take revenge on the killer. This wild goose chase takes him from the hospital to a zendo to the Maine coast, ticcing madly the entire time.

The plot of the story is not very complex, and you'll probably figure out the whodunnit before Lionel does. But that's not really the point of the book - the point is the glinting, kaleidescopic view into Lionel's freaky brain. And that is worth the read.

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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

 

book report: On the Black Hill

On the Black Hill
by Bruce Chatwin

I can't remember where I heard of this book. I have a feeling that it was from Quev, but I also can't remember why I think that.

The story is set in Wales circa World War II and follows the lives of two brothers, Benjamin and Lewis. We first meet them near the end of their lives, when they are two elderly bachelor farmers who work the land, keep the house, and even sleep in the same bed. Then the book retraces their lives from childhood up through their later years. I know this sounds really boring, but it's not. Chatwin lays out the factors in the brothers' lives that caused them to end up alone together in their old age, but allows the reader to draw her own conclusions about what it all means. I appreciated this approach to the story - I found it much more engaging than moralizing or too much access to the the brothers' thoughts would have been.

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Saturday, September 09, 2006

 

book report: Atonement

Atonement
by Ian McEwan

This is another book I picked up after seeing it on a list of Booker Prize nominees. I'd also seen one of my commuter bus compatriots reading it last year. It opens with 13-year-old Briony writing a play called "The Trials of Arabella" which she plans to stage with her cousins for her family at their posh British estate. Briony's nerves are on edge as she imagines impressing her relatives and friends, and pleasing her distant mother who is in bed with a migraine. I found this first part of the book fairly painful, remembering the agony and self-consciousness that is being a 13-year-old girl.

I'm not going to try to recap the plot of the book - it unfolds as you read and it shouldn't be given away. I will say that Briony grows up to be a nurse and then a writer, and that the book spans many years and a great deal of history. McEwan is a very gifted writer, and I was inspired to read more of his books. But they are emotionally heavy and I can't read too many of them all at once.

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Intertwined Designs

Intertwined Designs, Hemp Clothing and Quilts by Betsy Cassell

At Bumbershoot last weekend R* and I each bought a piece of clothing from this Bellingham clothing designer. Her stuff is really nice! I just wish I were rich so I could afford more of it.

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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

 

book report: Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami

I have been hearing people go on and on about Murakami for years. I had kind of come to the conclusion that his books were pretentious faux-intellectual novels for hipsters. I'm not sure that reading Kafka on the Shore really changed my opinion, but I was pretty intrigued by the story. And the writing (albeit in translation) was really quite good.

In this story, a 15 year old boy who has renamed himself Kafka runs away from home. His distant father has told him he is cursed to kill his father and sleep with his mother and sister, like a modern Oedipus. Kafka's mother and sister left Kafka and his father when Kafka was a small child, and he hasn't seen them since.

In a different plotline, an old man named Nakata lives in a government-subsidized apartment and talks to cats (who talk back), even though he cannot read or write. As a boy, Nakata was involved in a mysterious event in a forest, where an entire class of schoolchildren lost consciousness for no apparent reason. Nakata's and Kafka's storylines begin unconnected, but become interwoven as the novel progresses.

So here's the thing. There were a lot of elements to this book that I enjoyed - it was fresh and creative and not like any other story I've read... but I ultimately felt like I was missing the point, or perhaps that Murakami didn't have a point to make. I was frustrated when the book came to an end. I was expecting something fairly profound or at least an explanation of some of the mysterious events, but it didn't happen.

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

 

what to take to a retirement home

This is a strange idea for a blog post, but it's a subject I think about almost every day. Because my work experience as a nursing assistant has primarily been in assisted living facilities, I have seen a very wide variety of choices of clothing, accessories, furniture, keepsakes, and so on in residents' rooms. As a caregiver, I've developed some opinions about what kinds of things are really helpful, and what kinds of things are more trouble than they're worth.

Clothes:
Oddly enough, the problem I see most often in this area is the resident having too many clothes. If the resident brings their entire lifetime wardrobe to the facility, there will not be enough room for everything, and it will be very difficult to find clothes for them to wear. I know it's sometimes hard to get rid of things... but it really doesn't do the resident any good to have a closet crammed full of clothes they'll never wear. For example, I used to work with a lady who had three pairs of pants that fit her, a couple of skirts and a couple of dresses that fit, and then half of a closet full of clothes that didn't fit or were never appropriate. This lady was never going to need a choice of 5 dress coats again. Nor was she going to require a ball gown, 5 business suits, nor a fur coat.

Which brings me to my next point - make sure that the clothing the resident has actually fits! I can't tell you how many times I've tried to help a resident get dressed and discovered that their pants are too small, their sweater won't button, or their bra won't fasten. Often family members are in denial about the changes their loved one is experiencing - such as a woman I care for who was very petite for most of her life, but has gained a great deal of weight in the past few years, and also has issues with edema in her legs. A lot of her clothes are too small and even when her family members bring in a new item of clothing, they still buy a size small or medium because that's what she used to wear. Another factor in clothing sizes is the use of incontinence products - if a resident wears Depends/briefs/pullups/pads, those products take up a lot of room inside the clothing, and the resident may need pants that are a size bigger. Even if the pants still fit around the resident's waist, if they're not quite big enough, the Depends will show through the pants and that's embarrassing.

Lastly, I can't stress enough how important it is to have flexible, easy-to-wear clothes for residents. Even residents who are able to dress themselves without difficulty will often wear the same one or two outfits over and over because they're the easiest to put on and take off. And when the resident requires assistance to get dressed, it's even more important to have clothing available that is easy to get on and off. This means shirts with neckholes big enough to get over the resident's head easily, sleeves that aren't so tight that the caregiver has to yank the resident's arm off to get the sleeve past the elbow, pants with elastic in the waist (those comfort fit dress pants with the elastic sections are great for men!), socks that are not too tight (except for compression stockings of course), shoes that are easy to step into, comfortable pajamas that are easy to remove for toileting, slippers and bathrobes for trips to the toilet or the shower, and layering options because the elderly are more sensitive to temperature changes. If there was one item I could give every one of my residents, it would be a loose cardigan that buttoned or zipped all the way up to the neck, in a neutral color so it would go with any outfit, in a durable machine washable fabric. And if I could add another, it would be a full-length terrycloth robe that I could wrap around a wet resident just out of the shower so they wouldn't have to stand on the bathmat shivering while I towel them off. Oh yeah, PLEASE don't take any clothes that have special cleaning requirements. Caregivers do laundry constantly, and frankly we are too busy to deal with hand-washing, dry-cleaning, or drip-drying. Everything needs to be able to go into the washer and the dryer.

In a perfect world, the resident's clothes would all be in the same group of colors, so that they would look decent no matter how their clothes were combined. For example, I take care of one resident who has several pairs of black pants and a lot of blouses in bright colors or patterns. She looks nice every day because her clothes work even if chosen at random. Another woman I care for has several pairs of neutral colored pants and shirts and sweaters in pastel colors. She always looks pretty, too.

Clothes and linens should be labeled with the resident's name (and maybe room or bed number). Labels like this work great. For residents who have their laundry done by the facility, labeling helps make sure that clothes are returned to the correct resident. It's useful for residents who are independent as well - if they leave their sweater in the dining room, it will get returned.

Shoes:
Believe it or not, shoes are a huge deal. Most residents have very sensitive feet and need several functions from their footwear: stability, support, cushioning, pressure prevention, and comfort. It's very common for older people to develop pressure sores on their feet from shoes that are too tight or too stiff - and these sores take a long time to heal. Many residents who are wheelchair dependent don't wear shoes at all, but wear slippers (like these) to keep their feet warm and comfortable. Most residents also enjoy wearing slipper socks in bed - fuzzy socks with rubberized "treads" on the bottom for secure footing.

Accessories:
As a caregiver, I would like all my residents to have a comb & hairbrush (and lots of barrettes/combs/elastics for women who wear their hair up), a couple of toothbrushes and whatever denture care items they need (don't make your mom keep her teeth in a glass of water for lack of a denture cup!), a couple of glasses or cups for the bathroom, extra hearing aid batteries, a spare pair of eyeglasses if possible, and for men, an electric razor. Yes, I know a lot of men have always shaved with shaving cream and a razor. But now that I'm going to do it for him, I will do a much better job with an electric razor, and his face won't get cut accidentally even if he wiggles. If the resident's pants fall down (we see this often with men who tend to lose some weight around the middle as they age), please make sure they have a sturdy belt that will look okay with any outfit.

Some facilities provide sheets and towels for resident use, others do not. If your facility doesn't provide linens, bring at least three sets of sheets (preferably interchangeable in color/pattern) and three sets of towels (bath towel, hand towel, washcloth). An extra blanket and/or bedspread is also a good idea in case one gets soiled. If there is any risk at all of incontinence, a mattress protector and several incontinence pads are invaluable. One or two machine-washable throws or lap blankets are nice too - they are easy to tuck around a cold resident who is seated, or to put over a resident who is lying down for a nap.

Pillows are frequently overlooked but are important to have. Not only do we use a pillow under a resident's head while sleeping, we use them for positioning a resident on his/her side, to brace them in bed to preven them from rolling off the edge of the mattress, to elevate puffy legs, to make a chair or wheelchair seat more comfortable, to relieve pressure on an aching back, to prop up a resident who is weak on one side, and on and on. Three pillows is a good number to have on hand.

Furniture:
Most assisted living facilities and even some nursing homes encourage residents to bring their own items of furniture. It's hard to choose what to take to a small apartment, especially when the resident may be moving out of a large family house. It's very common for rooms to be overcrowded with lots of furniture that the resident never uses. I would suggest bringing a twin-size bed (ideally an adjustable bed), one dresser, the resident's favorite comfortable chair, and some kind of table or stand for a TV or radio. Other items that may be useful are an end table to put next to the comfortable chair, a bookshelf, a desk if the resident will use it, or a footstool. Some of the items that I've seen in residents' rooms that never seem to get any use are: dining tables & chairs, multiple bookshelves filled with old books or knick-knacks, musical instruments (I've seen pianos crammed into studio apartments!), sewing tables with sewing machines, full-size couches, desks full of papers and office supplies, china cabinets, coffee tables, grandfather clocks, and so on.

As for knick-knacks and decorations, I think it is wise to choose the most sentimentally valuable items and leave the rest. I cared for a woman (the one with 5 dress coats) who had two enormous floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of her lifetime collections of dolls, teacups, small statues, decorative plates, and on and on. She never looked at any of it. The type of items that residents seem to enjoy having in their rooms - even if they have memory loss - are framed family photos, a favorite painting/portrait/artwork, photo albums, and handmade items like afghans, quilts, rugs, and so on. Many residents with dementia enjoy having a favorite doll or teddy bear in their room. One of my residents carries around her childhood teddy and tells everyone that her daddy gave it to her when she was 5. It's obviously enormously comforting to her.

Okay, I think that's my entire brain dump. So, to recap!

Clothing:
  • easy to put on and take off, correct sizes, coordinating colors
  • machine washable and dryable
  • not too many clothes, only what's needed
  • plenty of pajamas or nightgowns
  • frequently used items like bathrobe, cardigan, slippers, bed socks
  • comfortable, sturdy shoes that don't cause pressure sores
    OR
  • study slippers
  • labels on clothing with resident's name

    Accessories:
  • comb & hairbrush, and hair accessories for women
  • a couple of toothbrushes, denture care items, and glasses or cups for the bathroom
  • extra hearing aid batteries
  • spare pair of eyeglasses
  • electric razor for men
  • 3 sets towels and 3 sets sheets if not provided by facility
  • mattress protector and incontinence pads
  • 3 pillows

    Furniture:
  • twin-size bed, preferably adjustable
  • favorite comfortable chair
  • dresser
  • optional according to resident preferences: end table, bookshelf, desk, footstool
  • a few treasured keepsakes, family photos (framed or in albums), a favorite portrait or artwork, a favorite doll or teddy bear
  • handmade items like afghans or quilts

    I hope this helps someone. I would gladly edit this post to accomodate suggestions any readers may have.

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