Can't Sleep

It's 12am, but it feels like 9pm. I am not very tired right now and I'm thinking it has something to do with me sleeping in until 11:30 today. I just brewed a cup of tea and after this post, I'll try to go back to bed.

Yesterday during class, my teacher who supervises us at Albright told us that there would be NO registered staff or PSW's working on our wing this weekend. That means that 11 of us newbies will be manning the altzheimers/dementia floor by ourselves. There are 30 residents on that wing. We are paired up with a classmate, so my partner and I will be responsible for 6 residents. Waking them up, mouthcare/dentures, pericare, dressing, hair, and making sure they are sitting in the dining room ready to eat at 8:30am sharp. This doesn't sound that bad, but throw in someone who is totally incontenent, cannot move or sit by themselves, is a screamer, spitter, resistive towards any help and it gets a lot tougher.

I'm not saying that the actual personal care will be tough, however I'll see if I can manage gagging only 5 times per shitty diaper this weekend. The only thing I am kind of concerned about is the fact that us students are not allowed to lift (mechanical only...there is a no physical lift policy) without our teacher. This will back a lot of us up having to wait for an open lift and to run around trying to find our teacher to "watch" us. Last weekend for instance, my partner and I got our resident up and ready in about 10 minutes. She didn't get into her wheelchair and out into the dining room until about and hour later because we were waiting for a lift. This was ridiculous. We got in crap for waiting so long, but there was nothing else we could have done. If all of us students are going at the same time and getting our residents up, it will be impossible to get everyone to breakfast on time. Maybe our teacher will figure out how unorganized this whole placement is. I know I shouldn't stress out about the lateness because of waiting for lifts, but it still looks bad.

We had a 20 minute meeting after class tonight for the Albright people. We tried to make up a "game plan" for this weekend, but all we decided on was to get the "walkers" up and adam first. Hopefully we can get all of them up in the first 10 min of our shift and then spend the next 2 hours and 45 min getting the dependant residents up.

Last weekend a few ladies in my class broke down and were bawling and I have a feeling that there are going to be A LOT more freaking out this weekend. This job doesn't even sound that hard writing about it, but I'll give everyone something to think about.

What if you were nice and warm in bed, you're a heavy sleeper and likes to sleep in every morning. All the sudden your flourescent bright lights in your bedroom are flicked on and your covers are ripped off of you. You're laying in bed freezing and 2 strangers start pulling your clothes off and begin washing you "down there". What would you do? I personally would freak right out, start hitting/kicking or whatever. This is why there are a lot of resistive residents and then they take so much longer to get ready.

Well my tea is probably cold by now, so Sunday afternoon or Monday I'll let everyone know how this weekend goes. Wish me luck...