Caregiver's Rant

[lngrid]

Quote:
It is a situation that has come up more than once. You have a choice. Fix it by getting a folding chair for $12 or spend time and energy being pd off each and every time it happens again in the future. We know it will. You decide.

Edited because I accidentally posted the a reply to wifezilla twice.

 

[lngrid]

Quote:
It is a situation that has come up more than once. You have a choice. Fix it by getting a folding chair for $12 or spend time and energy being pd off each and every time it happens again in the future. We know it will. You decide.

The point is that as a caregiver I'm already inclined to take on more than my fair burden of responsibility. This is where I've chosen to draw the line with this client. Anyone who can read from my rant what steps I've taken to handle this, or even what steps would be appropriate, must be psychic. If you are would you please tell me where I left my umbrella? It's raining tonight and I can't find it anywhere...

 

[lngrid]

I think that pretty much anything significant to be said on this thread has been said already, so I won't respond anymore unless it's earth-shattering. I mean, we're all here for the same reason:

WE REALLY LIKE CHICKENS!

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Quote:
I've been pondering how to respond to your post and have put a lot of thought into it. It sounds like you've been exposed to ignorant pus blisters. These are the people who think it's degrading to need help with simple things. These are the people who spread the lie that anyone (other than another ignorant pus blister) is useless. I'm not being even slightly sarcastic when I say that this is very sad. These ideas deserve nothing more than to be buried in nuclear waste dump.

I know you weren't born like this because, as babies we pooped and drooled everywhere and never thought of ourselves as inferior. When we were hungry or in discomfort, we made sure everyone in the room knew about it. We believed in ourselves with enthusiasm. As we grew, we needed to reign it in a little and to learn to believe in others, too, but all too often the ignorant pus blisters get to us as kids and feed us these lies.

Butlers arose in a culture that believed a person's worth was based on the class he or she was born into. Our culture believes that a person's worth is linked to his or her monetary fortune. I find the idea that giving a caregiver second-class treatment can elevate anyone to be not only false, but pathetic in the extreme. It gives in to the lie that anyone is second-class.

I hope I'm making sense. I've been working over this post so hard that I can't tell if what I'm writing sounds offensive. I don't mean it that way. I'm not angry at you. I'm upset at the ideas you've been infected with. As a caregiver I've seen and heard ignorant pus blisters be brutally inhuman. If it wasn't so unkind I'd ask some of them, "Were you raised by a crack whore or something?"

Can you tell I really hate ignorant pus bags?

The idea that I have been infected with? That is insulting. You have no idea! Until you have been there you will never know what is like to be disabled. It would be nice if no one felt useless but I bet you cant find one disabled person that does not feel that way sometimes. Do you think these people want some stranger in there house doing the thing that they should have been able to do on there own. The only person talking about class an entitlement here is you. Your class an your entitlement. You chose your job. You chose to be a BUTLER. The only difference is that the person you work for has no choice in the matter. They would rather not need you. You knew the job you applied for an how much it payed. You are payed to take care of them. If you think you are entitled to a thank you for doing your job, sorry. If you think you are entitled to be treated as part of the family because you chose to work for someone that is disabled, sorry. Sure some people will bind over backwards to thank you but others will have a hard time doing that. If you want a thank you for doing your job. You want acknowledgment that you are doing them a favor. If you see your job as doing someone a favor then you need to find a new job.

I myself have no problem asking for help bleeding the breaks on my truck an thanking someone for helping me. But one of the hardest things I have ever do is ask someone to hold a starter up so I can get a bolt started an then thank them for there time. I have to do it all the time an it just about killed me every time.
I ran a shop for a while an many times I had customers under the hood helping me. Now lets say I highered an assistant. If I was not disabled an asked the payed assistant to hold a part while I bolted it up I would not be expected to thank him for doing his job. So does that change because I am disabled? Expecting to be treated better because you work for the disabled than you would have been if you did the same job for someone that is not disabled implied that you are better than them.

Ive been on the other side to. I spent 13 years as a emergency medical trained fireman. Much of the time I was the only one in the district. Thats 13 years of missed holidays an 3 am medical calls. I cant count the people that are still here today because I was there to help them them. When I got a thank you I was surprised by it. What did not surprise me was when I got cussed, kicked, punched an spit on. It was not that they were bad people. I was a payed employee that no matter how much they new they needed me there, they didn't want to need me there. If I asked them for a thank you it would have been degrading to them. I trained a lot of people. Most of which did not cut it. The thought they were in it for the right reasons but they were not. The fact is that every service job in the world is a thankless job that you are meant to be in the background unless you are needed that second. If you see that as being treated as second class then get out of the service industry.

Frankly much of what you said bothered me. Both as someone with 13 years helping people an as someone that is disabled. It was about what you gave up to help people an how no one shows you the respect you deserve. I think you need to ask your self weather you gave those things up to help people or were you fishing for respect an a thank you. Also were you really disrespected or were you just not respected enough to meet your standards?

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Caregivers are NOT butlers. Anyone who believes this, well, I wish you good luck in finding a caregiver to work for you when you truly need it.

Ingrid, I know how you feel. I think the point of this post is not to degrade the disabled, nor to complain about a job. Rather, it seems as if Ingrid merely pointed out the lack of human decency I so commonly see in everyday life. Everyone who is human and mentally capable of acting in a socially acceptable way should treat others with respect. People should be decent to one another, whether they are the employer, employee, or whoever. I don't believe that paying someone to work for you excludes them from receiving respect and decency.

I am a volunteer EMT and i don't do it for the glory. Heck, if I did it for that, I would have quit long ago. However, that doesn't mean I can't get upset when someone is rude to me, or fails to thank me for a favor. I get upset, but usually I realize I love doing what I do, and one rude person or action is not worth quitting.

 

[lngrid]

Chickerdoodle understands exactly.
Chickerdoodle, you EMTs are wonderful. The woman I was caring for last spring died when I was with her. It was a sticky situation because I had known for weeks that she was dying; she was showing all the stages that dying people pass through. But her kids wouldn't call in Hospice! It was so heartbreaking because I've seen death a lot but I'm not an expert. She would ask me what was going on with her, but I'm not qualified to say outright, "Mary, you're dying and I think you'll pass on in just a few weeks." I mean, what if I'm wrong and traumatize her for nothing? That worried me more than liability issues. So on the day she died, she was in her recliner and was complaining that she couldn't see. I was pretty sure she was dying, but what if I was wrong? I had been suggesting for DAYS that she let me get her to the hospital, but she always adamantly refused to go. She even told the home health nurse who visited that morning that she refused to allow me to take her or call paramedics. My unbending policy is that I do whatever my client asks, as long as it isn't illegal and as long as the client isn't conserved, but privately I had decided that I would call 911 as soon as she didn't respond to me. Anyway, so she's sitting in her chair and asks me to call her daughter (who was then and still is my client as well). I get her daughter on the phone and then bring the phone over to Mary. My client says, "Hi, mom. Isn't this a gorgeous day? I've been thinking of you all morning. How are you?" When Mary opens her mouth to answer, I hear the death rattle and she collapses. Good, lord, what do you do in a situation like that? Her daughter has muscular dystrophy and her heart is frail. I was so panicked. How do you tell someone their last beloved parent has died on the phone with them? I get to KNOW my clients emotionally. I knew my current client wasn't prepared for her mother's death. She had been avoiding facing the issue for many months. Well, I just held Mary's head upright and told my client that Mary was having a difficult time and that I needed to call the paramedics (family had called 911 for several situations in the months previous). As I did that I noticed Mary's shoulder twitch and I thought that perhaps she hadn't died, so I continued to hold her head upright to keep her airway open. (She had specifically told me NOT to resuscitate her and she had a DNR order.) I don't remember anything after that, except watching Mary and checking for a carotid pulse, until I heard a voice above me say,

"It's okay. I have her now."

I was on my knees and looked up into eyes I'll never forget. I don't know how to put this into words, but this man cared beyond professionalism. He cared because he was human, in the best sense of the word. What I saw in his eyes was what made the NY firefighters go into the burning World Trade center buildings and up the stairs. And beyond that, it turned out that Mary didn't have her DNR on the premises, so the EMTs had to try to resuscitate her. She had, with good reason, been petrified of being brought back with brain damage, so I started shaking and crying hysterically, thinking "what if... what if... what if..." I don't have the words to express how wonderful those EMTs were. The guy talking to me kept shifting around so his body blocked my view of what they were doing to her. He kept telling me what to do next: "get me a list of Marys' medications, get me her medication schedule, get me her medical insurance card, get me her primary care physician's name and phone number, get your purse, get your coat, get your keys, here's a map of where we're taking her." By the time they were loading Mary into the firetruck he had me calmed down and functioning again. I know you are trained professionals. But these men went beyond professionalism. They were human, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, when people used to think humans were half-angelic.

EMTs who do the work for the love of it are a breed apart. All my words can't really express what I'm trying to say. I don't know the proper ones.


And, rebelcowboy, I myself am disabled. So is my son. The people I work with and have worked with are satisfied enough with my work that I have never, ever sought a care giving job. All my clients, from the very first one, have sought me out after having heard of me through word of mouth. I do not advertise and I do not seek out seek out my positions. I have never worked through an agency or for a hospital or care giving facility. My previous employer passed away last April, but I started my next job 2 days later. I have never gone without work, even in this economy. I regularly get calls from people asking me to work for them, and when one of my clients has passed on, as has happened several times, I have begun working for a new one within a few days.

So you, who do not know me at all, are dead wrong about how I treat my clients. If my clients were unsatisfied with our dealings, I would not be as successful as I have been.

I do not patronize my clients. I do not do what I do because they need help, though there is nothing wrong with needing help. I do what I do because the world at large needs everyone's participation, and I don't mean that sentimentally. Look around at the complex problems we're facing. We can't afford to leave anyone on the sidelines. Among my clients have been a computer programmer, a legislative analyst, an aeronautical engineer, a law student who is now serving an internship in Washington DC, an attorney, an executive with a pharmaceuticals company, and executive in my state's department of health and human services. Anyone who reads boasting here is totally off-base. The point isn't who I work for, but how much they had to offer their society. And the bald truth is that they wouldn't have been able to function like that without their caregivers.

This topic is reaching the point of getting unpleasant so I am no longer going to check it or respond to any more posts here. I apologize to anyone who might have something positive to say, but BYC isn't a place for disputes. I started this with a rant, sort of like yelling in frustration. I run across many posts here that offend me. I just ignore them and move on. I'm surprised that some people have gotten hooked in a negative way by my rant. I didn't intend that. That's why I'm locking down my participation in it.

 

[accio! chickens]

Flame suit on...

Ever since I was run off the sidewalk by a person in a motorized wheelchair (I was nine, and we were on a main highway through town... I almost got hit by a car), I've had a sore spot for the disabled. With the exception of one girl, all the disabled people I've known, who I'm sure are great people have had a sense of entitlement surrounding them. They feel we HAVE to help them, I HAVE to get out of the way, open the door... no, I don't, I do it out of courtesy and has one person I've ever helped said thank you? Nope. So I stopped helping.

It's not just disabled though.. I worked at a retail store in a mall and one of my coworkers was diabetic. I was 16 when she had her first diabetic episode in the store. She started convulsing and I had to close the store, panicking, call 911, etc. I'd never dealt with that sort of thing before. I was expected after that day to ensure she was taking her insulin/meds and eating when she was supposed to be eating. Not part of my job description, and I wasn't paid any more for it either. My coworker was later fired after having several more attacks during christmas rush hours because she wouldn't take her breaks or insulin.

 

[Iowa Roo Mom]

accio! chickens :

Flame suit on...

Ever since I was run off the sidewalk by a person in a motorized wheelchair (I was nine, and we were on a main highway through town... I almost got hit by a car), I've had a sore spot for the disabled. With the exception of one girl, all the disabled people I've known, who I'm sure are great people have had a sense of entitlement surrounding them. They feel we HAVE to help them, I HAVE to get out of the way, open the door... no, I don't, I do it out of courtesy and has one person I've ever helped said thank you? Nope. So I stopped helping.

It's not just disabled though.. I worked at a retail store in a mall and one of my coworkers was diabetic. I was 16 when she had her first diabetic episode in the store. She started convulsing and I had to close the store, panicking, call 911, etc. I'd never dealt with that sort of thing before. I was expected after that day to ensure she was taking her insulin/meds and eating when she was supposed to be eating. Not part of my job description, and I wasn't paid any more for it either. My coworker was later fired after having several more attacks during christmas rush hours because she wouldn't take her breaks or insulin.

I am sorry that person left you a sore spot. I have a handicapped mother, and she is a beautiful person, and would do anything for anyone and would expect nothing in return. I'm also involved with the NWTF's Wheelin' Sportsmen, taking handicapped people on guided turkey hunts in the area. They're a great group of folks and are so appreciative of everything.​

 

[AhBee01]

My Aunt has MS, back in 1970's, She was nursing home bound. At Some point she had a personal care giver, I don't know if this woman was even paid, and if so by whom, I was just little.
Her name was Carol, she did everything with my Aunt, We treated her like family, she was invited to every function we had. I remember crawling into this woman's lap, and loving her up cuz she brought my Aunt T T! Sadly when my Aunt passed we really never saw her again, she just disappeared.
A few years ago, my Cousin worked in a nursing home, and Carol was a resident there, we don't know why. It was like her family just dumped her there.
She slipped and fell, hit her head and passed away.
I was so sad to hear that. I just hope she had someone to care for her, as she cared for my Aunt.
Before she died,my cousin would visit her on her breaks, but she didn't really remember her!

 

[mamagardener]

Everybody, no matter what their job is deserves to be treated with respect and appreciation! A lot of these posts are pretty much telling you to deal with it, well that is not right because you deserve respect. I don't care what you do, you still need to be appreciated for doing a good job. That is why it is so hard to find good caregivers in this world, because they don't often get the pay and respect they deserve.