Good Weekend After All!

My weekend at Albright when a lot better than what I had expected. Saturday wasn't as good as Sunday, but I still couldn't complain too much. My partner and I had the same lady that we were assigned from last week, and because she is so difficult, we only had to get up 1 resident! I was getting really sick of actually only getting her up and not experiencing anyone else, so our teacher switched up our partnerships and gave us all new residents to care for. That was awesome! I was put with a really super nice Phillipino lady named Christine. Her and I got along and worked together SO well. I finally realized now that our first resident I had with my first partner was so difficult because she didn't do anything! It was great being able to split all of the things we had to get done between the two of us. We got up 3 people all before breakfast! A lot of other girls were SO much later than us, so that eased our minds a little bit there too. We had a female "walker", a standing lift female resident, and a sling lift man resident. We decided that because the standing lift lady needed about 10 min to wake up after turning on her light, we would get the walker ready. That was such a breeze having a resident that could dress herself and go to the bathroom herself. It was great. The only thing I did, LOL, was put her dentures in upsidedown. That was so hilarious, my partner and I couldn't stop laughing. My teacher thought that was pretty funny too. After we got her up, we went and continued with our standing lift lady. She was pretty easy too and very cooperative. She got toileted which is nice because we odn't have to change any pads or diapers then. There isn't much to say about her, so after we got her up it was just before 8am. We wheeled her into the lounge and went to our sling lift man. When we woke him up, we thought we were just in for a horrible time. Other than him screamed/yelling the entire time, it wasn't that bad. He can't move, he's incontenant and can't talk (only make loud yelling noises). We got him ready in his bed by turning him back and forth getting his clothing on. His sweatshirt was nice because it was completely open in the back so you only have to put his head and arms through. Once we got him cleaned up and dressed, we had to put the sling underneath him. So we turned him one way, tucked the sling as far as we could behind is back and then turned him the other way and pulled it through. We had to get our teacher to assist us with the lift because we have never used a ceiling sling lift before and we can't lift without registered staff or our teacher with us. She was impressed with how we worked with him (usually the staff at albright have a hard time with him) and we lifted him and got him in his chair. I shaved his face and put him inthe dining room for breakfast. He usually doesn't eat hardly anything either, but he drank both of his drinks and all of his food. It was a good morning and then during the afternoon I mingled with the residents for the most part after 10:30 toileting and lunch. Next week I'm getting tested on bathing a resident, but I enjoyed that a lot so I'm not worried. I think things are beginning to get easier/better because we are really getting to know our residents a lot more now. It's easier to socialize with them and it's fun bugging the odd person too hehe. Anyway, I thought I would post some pictures of what the lifts look like that we use so that you all know what I'm tlaking about. The first is the ceiling mounted sling lift and the second is the sit to standing lift.