I love my job

[Megsd, BSN, RN]

I have been working as a home health aide in a retirement community for the past few months, and have enjoyed my position thoroughly, but unfortunately the hours are pretty limited (7-11am and/or 6-10pm) so in order to make ends meet I have had to work every... single... day. I decided that having a day off every once in a while might be nice, so I took a job at another home care agency to fill up my afternoons. This new agency has a VERY thorough orientation -- 5 days, 9-4:30 every day. My old job scheduled me to work tonight from 6-10, which I wasn't looking forward to because I was already "working" 9-4:30. I finished my orientation day drained from watching OSHA videos, handwashing videos, TB videos, fire safety videos, etc., etc., etc. and went to my other job in a somewhat bad mood.

The evening started off kind of hectic. Since all my patients live in the same place, I assign times to each and just go straight from one to another. Well, there was a bingo game tonight that two of my ladies were involved in, another was having a massage through PT, and the rest are very particular about what time they receive their care and I was not willing to deal with their wrath by coming early. So Bingo ended after a bit, I went along with the schedule, albeit somewhat delayed, and finally got to the lady who had had the massage.

I asked the lady how her day went, and she told me it was one of the worst days ever. She had a doctor's appointment that didn't go well, she was constipated and the suppository and enema hadn't worked, her back hurt, she didn't have her eyedrops, and she was in a rotten mood and didn't think the nurse would come see her because she was so crabby. My "job" for this lady tonight was PM care (change into PJs, turn down bed, etc.). She was already dressed for bed, so I turned down her bed and then sat down next to her. I told her we understand she's not feeling well, we know she's not always mean and crabby, we talked about college basketball (she's a Duke fan), I rubbed her back a little, and at the end of my short visit she said she was so glad I had taken the time to see her and that I really made her feel better. When she said that, all of my stress from the day and my reluctance to come to work vanished, and I remembered why I do what I do. I feel very fortunate to be in such a fulfilling profession.