A one aide short Monday

Dayshift is hard enough in a nursing home when there are enough aides, let alone when they are one short. That was the situation today. The Restorative Aide had to be a floor aide. I don't think she was feeling it this morning. She felt put upon and we could all tell. Sometimes when you're asked to step in, you just have to keep going and forget about all the other things that are going on all around you. But that wasn't happening today.

Breakfast was a rush and a swirl of activity. We had no extra activity aide to help pass trays and possibly feed residents who needed extra help.. We got through it without major problems. But the aide who cared for me felt more of the stress. She took it on herself. She verbalized so much that I felt like I was living inside her brain. Take it from me, her brain was not a pretty place to be this morning.

Right after breakfast the mobile dentist showed up. He brought in two carts with his dentistry tools, computers, and whatever else with him. There's no really good place to put the dentist. He usually goes in the back dining room. I never think that's a good choice. But that's where he's usually put.

Not many of the residents responded to calls to go to the dentist. Most residents at this behavior facility are not morning people. They are reluctant about getting up for breakfast. So I know how they must've felt about something that could be painful like seeing the dentist.

I heard several residents refuse to come. Others were told the nurse manager expected them to go.

The aide who cared for me, would normally have handled getting residents to and from the dentist. Instead, she had to be an aide and the dentist gofer also. I'm sure she felt that was unfair. Perhaps all three aides could have tag teamed the task to make it easier. But it's just really hard for three people to do the work of four.

When I went down to lunch and started through the back dining room door, I saw the dentist was still examining residents and stopped dead right in the doorway. I guess I should have backed up. I didn't know quite what to do. I didn't want to interrupt the dentist. But I didn't want to miss lunch either. In the end, an aide told me to move and I did into the room and towards my table.

I usually sit in the back dining room and enjoy the view out the window for a while before lunch. Today that could not happen the back room was taken up. Then, the dentist had to move his equipment out and the room had to be quickly readied for lunch

That meant the residents at my table sat together too long. I wanted to move away from that room so badly. The dentist was gone and it seemed like the meal took forever.

Later my aide bemoaned the fact that she had to do so much on a Monday when they were one aide short. I thought to myself, Mondays are like that sometimes. Except for when we have a week's worth of Mondays.