Your best/worst experience.

DreamyEyes · Sep 12, 2007

I've only been to clinical so far, but I'll be starting as a nursing assistant at the end of this month, so hope you don't mind me answering. :)

My best experience during clinical was dealing with a particular resident, I'll call him "Jim". Jim never let anyone shower him, dress him, or take care of him. When we got there, I found out he was in the same clothes for 3 days. For some reason, as soon as I got there and introduced myself, he really liked me and trusted me enough to take care of him. He let me shower him and dress him, and I found out that he kept going on and on about me all through the next shift. That made me feel great. :loveya:

My worst experience (so far) was collecting a stool sample on my first week of clinical. Not the greatest thing to experience in the world.

Knorremeisje · Sep 12, 2007

The best experience.... I think that would be the day that a patient told me she thought I did an excellent job and said that I should make sure the hospital makes me a nurse. It was really sweet, especially since she was a retired ICU nurse.

The worst experience... We had a lady with severe Alzheimer's and she had a bowel obstruction. Of course she received a suppository. A few minutes later her room was getting kind of smelly and we decided to get her out of the chair and clean her up. She didn't co-operate so we needed 3 people to get her up. When we finally got her up and we started cleaning her up, she continued pooping on my gloved hands! It was really, really disgusting! But at the same time I couldn't help laughing!

Kassperlou07 · Sep 16, 2007

i have only worked about a week and a half but... my best experience so far was one of my residents gave me a hug and told me she loved me and how she wished she had the money to go home and hire me as her home health aid. it made me feel so good

everyone says their worst is cleaning BM or something, but for some reason poop just doesnt seem to bother me that much. its just one small part of the day. anyway one of my residents made me sad because she got ran over by her ex husband and keeps retelling the story about how her kids never come to see her. im sensitive so this broke my heart :uhoh21:

erin1205 · Sep 16, 2007

There are so many good/best experiences! Happy residents, happy families, happy endings...it makes it all worth it!

But I have a worst that could top them all!! I had worked in an assisted living facility for about a year and got a job in a hospital-thats what I had really been hoping for! So my first shift alone, after three days of orientation, we had a 90+ year old, very confused gentleman who only spoke Swedish. (Though his wife said he had spoken English his whole life, but refused when he got sick :)

Anyway, I was helping him with getting cleaned up and he had just had a red jello after being NPO for a few days. He said something to me in a desperate voice, but being that I don't speak Swedish I didn't understand. Just as I was asking him what was wrong, red, projectile vomit! And yes, my mouth was open!

Terrible, horrible, disgusting, I never thought I'd be able to come back.......but I did!!!!

AprilRNhere · Sep 16, 2007

Can I post here...I'm a nurse? When I was a CNA....my best was when this really confused resident...kept telling a nurse (the snotty nurse on my shift..who acted like she ran everything) that I was the best nurse he'd ever had.

The worst...I had a resident who was on Paridium (medication that makes your urine dark orange) He had an indwelling foley..with a leg bag. He had been out all day..and had come back JUST prior to change of shift time..and the bag hadn't been changed. When I attempted to lift his pants leg...the bag exploded on me...staining the floor...my pants..and my BRAND NEW shoes. I dropped them in the trash on the way out the door at the end of the shift.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Sep 21, 2007

I was working at a small group home, and responsible for taking care of 6 mentally retarded adults. One of these residents, a middle-aged man with profound retardation, had a fascination with playing with his fecal matter. Overnight, he had smeared a massive amount of his feces onto the carpet and across the wall of the bedroom where he slept. The poopy mess was so stinky, and stained the carpet permanently.

DreamyEyes · Sep 22, 2007

Anyway, I was helping him with getting cleaned up and he had just had a red jello after being NPO for a few days. He said something to me in a desperate voice, but being that I don't speak Swedish I didn't understand. Just as I was asking him what was wrong, red, projectile vomit! And yes, my mouth was open!

:barf01: Yikes!! I think I would have thrown up. :lol2:

erin1205 · Sep 25, 2007

:barf01: Yikes!! I think I would have thrown up.

Yeah, I definitely thought I was going to!! After three years, I haven't had a gross moment that comes close to it!

Bebi11 · Sep 26, 2007

:barf01: Yikes!! I think I would have thrown up.

Yikes :uhoh21: I agree.

I find it very interesting to hear everyones experiences, so keep the thread going please.

bethin · Sep 26, 2007

worst: being the only person on 3rd shift in a psych lockdown unit. A resident got mad and ripped a door off the hinges. He also peed on my leg and laughed.

best: took care of an elderly lady on med surg. I took her TED's off one night and gave her a back rub. She told me that I was the nicest person she has ever met and she could tell that I cared about her. She went on to tell me that I'd make a great nurse.

Even a simple thank you from a pt means alot to me.

amanda1229 · Oct 2, 2007

I've only been a CNA for four months, but I've had a few good and bads.

One of my bests has been with a resident I'll call Maggie. Maggie had COPD and so many problems. She was only an Ax1 and continent when I got there, but a couple months in started to decline fast. She could barely stand, needed to "take a breather" more often. I knew she was giving up. She had such a great sense of humor, though, it was hard not to get a laugh out of her in even this state (towards the end, she would get room trays for breakfast and we would laugh at a big ol' plate with just one stupid egg rolling around, haha). She was incontinent all the time, and always made fun of herself for it. One time though, I was standing Maggie up to go from toilet to chair, and she just started to collapse out of weakness. Adrenaline and instinct took over and I just threw her back onto the toilet to save her from falling -- with such force, I bruised both of her underarms mildly. She became an Ax2 soon after.

Maggie became so weak, she never talked to anyone but her daughters that came to see her daily. She moved to the hospice home, and a few days later I heard she'd passed away. Her whole family, just the nicest people ever, were cleaning out her room. I went in and said, "I just want you to know I'm so sorry for your loss, and it was a real pleasure taking care of your mom. We're all going to miss her." They just looked at me, blinked -- for a second I felt like maybe I'd been out of place -- until one of them said, "Oh my God, you're the only one who's said anything like that, thank you so much, you have no idea..." And we just hugged and cried. I got hugs from ten or eleven different people then, and I wished them the best and clocked out for the day. It felt really great to just be there, it was then I finally felt like an aide and was really ready to be a nurse.

Bads, there's a few, but they aren't the worst. My favorite, absolute favorite resident, I'll call her Anna has Alzheimer's. It's just bad, she barely eats or drinks now. When I first started, she would walk next to me with her gait belt around her, simple Ax1 and just a short sweet thing. Her husband Mickey would tell me about how she used to sing, so I always get her to sing Jesus Loves Me with me. We would have endless conversations about whatever, and when you talk with someone with Alzheimer's like hers, it really does end up like whatever. Her husband Mickey always came to see her and was very dedicated and great, would sit with her, sometimes cry alone with her, as she sat staring ahead.

One day I heard a PSA sounding, and our SW got there first -- Anna had tried to get out of bed and fell. I could hear her screams as the nurses tried to move her and knew she'd broken something. As she was walked away on the stretcher, I gave her a kiss and told her to be good, and she said, "Of course, dear!" and just smiled away, forgetting the pain, I hope. She'd broken her femur and will probably never walk again. The day she fell we found Mickey in bed with another female, and quite confused, resident. It broke my heart double time. Anna is now an Ax2 w/Hoyer and her Alzheimer's gets worse all the time, though Mickey still vows he's a great man and has always loved her, I don't look at him the same, sadly.

Another resident, I'll call Charlie, was an Ax2, skinny, frail old man. Everything hurt, he would call you every horrible name in the book, be absolutely terrible, hit you, whatever. But I took a liking to him, because when he was sweet, he was sweet. Other aides told me that sometimes when he was in pain he'd yell out my name even if I wasn't working. He never got married or had kids (said he didn't want a b***h or brats around). He yelled "Help me, help me" and whimpered all night long in pain, wouldn't eat or drink, was on the call light constantly. He told me he was an aide for forty years until he retired and volunteered for ten more until the hospital just told him to stop coming. He had to have had a wonderful heart his whole life.

He started to go down hill, his limbs were swollen but his face was sunken in. He told me to pray for God to take him away, and I told him I wouldn't. In the back of my head, I was torn though -- he was in pain all the time, I wouldn't want a life like that. He started refusing all meals. One day I came to work and they told me Charlie would die that day. Right around my break time, they were waiting for it, and I was hoping I'd get to be in there before he went to say goodbye and then help clean him up. I clocked out, came back, and he was gone. I was so, so heartbroken, but when I went in to see him, I was relieved. And so was he, the poor man had been so weak and so ill, he'd been ready to go long ago. I know wherever he may be now, he is the happier man he used to be, and completely pain-free, and if there is a God, I would thank him for taking Charlie when he did and not a minute later.

Still, watching him being finally taken out was a little heartbreaking for all the staff, no family to see him out, no one to comfort him but the few aides and nurses that didn't despise him. Everyone says they miss him now, and every time our wings are call-light crazy we say Charlie's fooling us. But I know that, sadly, only a handful of staff truly valued him, but I guess I can be glad to say I was one of them.