Hell on maintenance

It seems like something is always breaking in my nursing home room. I usually have a list of things that need to be done. And it's so hard when you have to wait for the maintenance guy MM to get around to it.

I have a white cabinet where I keep my personal items and snacks locked up. I brought it from a previous nursing home. Ever since I've had a laptop, which is stored inside, the hinges get ruined on the one side of the cabinet by being bumped. The middle one has been without screws in it for months. I asked the aides to put the hinge replacement on MM's list. But if they did – nothing happened. I ceased worrying about it. After I asked several times and nothing happened, I just gave up.

This morning J my aide opened that white cabinet. There was a crash and she yelled in pain. The door which is about 5 feet high fell off the top hinge and hit her above her left eyebrow. I felt really badly about it and apologized. I told her I knew the maintenance man would not get to it and the door would fall off and possibly hurt someone. So, needless to say, that door being fixed has probably moved to the top of MM's list.

Then, right before breakfast when I was lifted with the Hoyer onto the bed to have my pants pulled up, the call light came on. The aides tried to turn it off, but it would not go off. Since it was before breakfast we had to hurry to the dining room. After breakfast my nurse DD asked me what I thought they could do to fix it. I told her we needed to make sure there were no kinks in the tubing which could cause the switch to remain in the open position. Other than that, I had no idea.

DD said she would contact the maintenance man or the nurse manager. But as the day wore on I was getting concerned. I don't like to be here at night without any way to call the aides or nurse if I need assistance. So I emailed the nurse manager telling her the call light was in the on position and could not be turned off. I sent MM a copy of the email.

When second shift aides got here, one of the aides went to get a call light from another room. Mine is different because I have a blow in call light that uses my breath to activate the switch which turns on the call light. On the others, a button is pressed. The aides wanted to use the probe to push into the wall receptacle to see if the switch would shut off. When plugged in the probe and hit the cancel button, the call light shut off. Since it had been lit up and beeping since before breakfast, I'm sure the nurses were relieved not to hear it.

When I asked H, the aide, how she knew to do that. She said she worked briefly at another nursing home for a few weeks and learned it there.

My hats off to H. MM will have less to do tomorrow because of her.