coffeelover10

Correcting yourself makes all the difference. I explained half of one of my skills because I was so nervous I just kept tripping up. As I could explain it fabulously, I still passed the skill.

My only experience with C. diff thus far wasn't too bad. Uhm, even the bedsores and huge open areas don't make me gag. The occasional resident will have bm that smells like foods I can actually identify and THAT makes me gag, but being spit on/mouth care with residents that pocket their food drives me insane.

You guys are all absolutely amazing, and 100% correct. I came back to this post I made after a rough weekend shift and a spat with a coworker that left me in tears. And while I know I've got a long way to go (and maybe that I've gotta let that skin get a little thicker), when things feel at their worst I remember that I could work anywhere for a paycheck. I am here for THEM. Thank you for all of your inspiration and encouragement. Kelsey, I know the feeling about being back and forth, but at the same time, I still don't want to do anything else! At the end of the day, no matter what went wrong, I still love what I do.

Wow, I'm sorry you deal with that. I'm a newer CNA and I deal with many of those things myself. I don't know how long you've been doing this but it just sounds strikingly familiar. I wish I had a truly productive suggestion for you, but all I can say is that a change in environment might be the best for you. Sorry if that's stating the obvious, I just wanted to let you know I empathize with you.

I agree with the telling yourself its part of what we do. On occasion I still smell things that make me nauseous, and I try to tough through it for the sake of the resident and just focus on getting the task done with. Most of them are aware they smell, so if they notice you struggling they tend to feel embarrassed. Believe it or not though, my SO smells worse than almost anybody I know. I can be on the other side of the house, and very loudly, I let him know he stinks more than all my residents combined :)

xinspiredx: I don't actually want to switch departments. What I am sharing is not a lack of love for my job. I wanted to share some of the things I have learned in my short time at my facility. Being as young as I am, being a CNA has taught me stress management, time management, and patience. When I said I can't remember why I wanted to do this, I mean only that being a CNA was not what I thought it would be. It's a whole lot more. But I see so many people here start their first jobs frustrated and disillusioned and worried, and they should know that they can do it!

I'm kind of looking for some advice. The RN programs at all my local schools are flooded. I'm considering going for my LPN certificate as a stepping-stone of sorts, and because I have been taking part time classes at my community college for three years now, and seating is still full. I have a 3.1 GPA (I know it's low), and I'm running out of classes to take. My question is, if I were to become an LPN first, would it possibly be easier to get into a bridge program? Don't get me wrong, I love working as an aide, but I cannot afford to keep working part time without being in a program. I can't go to school full time because I'm just about out of classes to put towards a nursing degree (non-nursing classes, of course). Taking this step would at least allow my fiancee' and I to get a second car, and would open up more schooling options for me in the future.

As far as what a CNA should make? I thought I was making good money, about 11$ an hour. Would I like more? Oh hell yes, I think about it every time I calculate how many days I need to pick up to pay the bills. But we'd all like more money for the things we do, and I don't think that changes whether you're a CNA, LPN, RN, etc. . .It's more than I've ever made in my life and even though it's not career money, I am thankful just to have a job in my area.

To many: I am sorry you're lonely. If I had the time I would sit with you, because I know how I would feel stuck here 24/7. But. I. Just. Don't. You are a 1 assist. I lay you down last because it is HELL trying to find a partner for all the 2 assists/hoyers that need to lay down. I am not going to give my partner the chance to run away while I take the five minutes to put you to bed. Wait your turn, and stop acting like I forgot about you every time I walk by. CNA's. My resident is on the floor, or is about to be and there is nothing but me in the way of them falling. The light has been ringing for twenty minutes and I am not allowed to leave. Stop assuming they want a tissue and pop your head in once in awhile. And oh yeah, the reason I let YOU run to the last alarm is because I've ran to that room five times already while YOU sat at the nurse's station chatting and ignoring it. Also to CNA's - I will change your resident, but not all the time, every time. Sometimes I am telling you your resident needs to use the bathroom because I am juggling four things at once. And if you ask for my help and I ask you to give me a minute, don't give me attitude. I cannot make my resident move any faster, believe me I have tried.

I'm no expert. I've been working as a CNA for four months. But I wanted to take a few moments to sit back and share some laughs. Maybe some of you other newbies will get a kick out of this. Do you even remember why you wanted to become a CNA? Do you remember telling yourself (and maybe others) that you were gonna be great? Do you remember when your biggest worry was at what step the clothing protector came off? At the end of a particularly stressful day, I often laugh and laugh and laugh at myself. I've learned how. I've learned that a good day is when you get everything done, and a bad day, well, actually, you're not allowed to leave work undone, so even on a rough day, I tend to clock out with at least a shaky "I made it!". I don't remember why I wanted to do this work. Some days I feel like it's the last thing I want to do. And then a kind of patience that my twenty one year old self has never known before settles over me when I spend forty minutes in a room with the most demanding residents. Oddly enough, I have as much fondness for the residents who've gotten in a few punches as I do for the ones who tell me I'm doing great and thank me profusely for responding to their lights. Oh yeah, I won't deny it. In the past four months I have cried right on the floor, I have snapped at (and quickly apologized to) my coworkers. I have learned that there is no such thing as a "sick day" for us part-timers, and that if our charting (computerized of course) didn't reset when our shifts were supposed to end, I'd probably stay late almost every day, and gladly. As I said, I have also learned to laugh. I have learned not to skip my breaks if I can manage it, because ten minutes of peace and quiet is like a trip to the spa. And while I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for entry into an RN program, the only thing left to motivate me is my job. Because while I have been bitten, punched, kicked, spit on, slapped, pooped, peed, and bled on; and while I can't imagine why I signed up for this to begin with, I can't imagine ever doing anything else. So please, take a minute to laugh with me. For the other newbies like me, what have you learned over your time at your facility(ies)? How have you changed? I see the motivation on the board, and then the disillusionment, but I don't think anybody every talks about the moment when it hits us, what being a CNA really is. I see now why all the veterans laugh at us.

THANK YOU for the med answers. One of my biggest fears about getting checked out was if I go anything and then get drug tested. I'm a new CNA and given my lack of experience I don't want to risk my job if someone falls or something, because being new, I'm not cocky enough to say nothing's gonna ever happen.

Here's the quick story: All my life I've been super hyperactive. I get distracted easily, bounce around like crazy, and cannot shut up. Getting through school has been a task so far and I have trouble making friends/maintaining good relationships at work. Often times I try to slow myself down, but I can't, and I say things I know are unnecessary but I just cannot stop. At home I tend to get these bouts of feeling "hyperactive" that are hard to control and hard to channel into anything useful for any decent amount of time, and I often know my sometimes childish behavior is going too far for people but once I get like that it's hard to control. At work not so much because I am a new nurse aide and I'm so busy trying to keep up with everything (busy jobs have helped a lot), it's only noticeable there to people because I cannot stand silence, or when I'm trying to organize my tasks for that part of the shift (at every break, I try to plan out what I'm doing until the next break). Mixed views: I've had previous bosses friends and family tell me I'm a classic case for ADHD but my parents didn't believe in it, so treatment was always out of the question. Now I'm afraid to ask my doctor because I don't want to be laughed out of the office, and I don't know if a diagnosis would interfere with my chances of getting into my nursing program, or finding a job as a nurse if I were medicated. Why I'm asking now: It's been debated since I was a small child, and I am twenty one in January. I'm finding school harder and harder to focus on as time goes by, even though the classes and the information fascinates me, and though I have no trouble understanding the material. I am wondering if seeking a diagnosis/treatment might be beneficial to me as my classes and work and domestic demands increase. I also want to quit smoking, a habit that I use to "take breaks" and refocus myself. Its very hard for me to follow through on anything at all, the only thing I feel I've improved on these past few months is my work attendance. If there's a chance this could balance me out, I think it may help my anxiety as well, which I can't take medication for because I can't function on it. It's hard to be the calm and focused one at work, but I try as hard as I can for my residents. I feel that with time and experience I will be very good at what I do. I'm just afraid to ask my doctor and worried about my loved ones finding out if I do have ADHD or if I do go on medications. There seem to be a lot of people here with experience with ADHD, and so I figured it would be safe to talk here. Thank you for listening, guys.

There's a book you can buy if your nervous. I wish I still had it so I could tell you the title. But ask around your school, maybe even the bookstore. I'm a little weaker in math and the book helped to refresh me fast. I don't think I would have done so well without it. Just keep in mind if you find a review book, it may have subject matter a little different than what's on the test (like the Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion? Didn't need THAT at all!). Still its good solid review you can do on the go.

I am a new CNA, I've been working in my facility since October. The facility I work in is actually IMHO a much better working environment than the one I did my clinicals in, and that shows. But I learned quickly that sometimes you have to take shortcuts. Try to keep an open mind, and avoid taking shortcuts that are unsafe or will cause the resident discomfort, but when you are on your own and have so many residents to care for in just eight hours, not everything will go by the book. There is just never enough time or staff for it to work. There will always be the people that take the kind of shortcuts that make you cringe, but you don't have to do things their way! You will find your own way in time (believe me, every day is a learning experience), and you may even find that you can save time simply by getting to know your residents' routines (For example, by knowing that if one of my residents is not toileted before lunch, she will have an accident, I make five minutes to get her on and off the toilet. This saves me fifteen minutes of cleaning up and changing her clothes later. We are both happier for it in the end, and she doesn't have to go through the embarrassment of having an accident). Give it a good chance, and never tolerate abuse. Being new, you're likely going to be very slow at first, and you will start to see why some things are improvised on from time to time. If you do something the wrong way, you'll get in trouble. If you don't get your work done, you'll get in trouble. If you browse around here you will see that this double standard is a constant point of contention for CNA's. Give it some time! When you're on your own with eight or twelve residents, you'll see!

I have been attending community college part time since I graduated high school in 2008. While I have had my rough patches I have a GPA of about 3.2 (and am continually working to raise it) and I scored a 94% on the Nursing Entrance Test. While I hear that many people in my school have had to wait and wait and wait to get into the Nursing program, I am getting frustrated with being passed over, and running out of gen ed's to take. I am going to be submitting applications to a few other schools, as well as my current school's other campus for the fall, and I plan to simply keep trying. I became a CNA over the summer and was hired in October and I love my job, despite all of its challenges. I am not about to let an administrator try to tell me that this is not the career for me. However it is frustrating to watch friends in other fields already graduating with no idea of when I'll even make it into a program. I feel as though maybe I am doing something wrong, or that maybe there is a reason I have been passed over (and perhaps I could do something to change that). This past semester I have felt discouraged and it has affected my grades somewhat, despite my best efforts not to let it get me down. With money and gen eds running out its stressful. I keep telling myself to be patient and keep working on bringing up my GPA, and it'll happen, but I feel as though I am alone in all this waiting (or maybe just a little crazy). Has anyone else been waiting or passed over? Or is it just me? How do you guys stay motivated while dealing with the politics of college?