Dear Diary,
My warmest Easter greetings. For the readers of my blog, I wish you the best Easter days. I still blur the date and time of my posts to make it impossible for third parties to make a direct reference to a person. And obviously I thought while writing that these lines would probably be published around Easter. So Happy Easter.
I will not be able to change my own current carers. The only thing that helps is to change the care service. But what I am writing here is symptomatic for the majority of my current carers. Both male and female. I would also call them diverse, but as militantly straight and hetero as almost all the Yugos I know are, there is hardly anyone like that in care.
But I still write about it and am happy that I can vent my frustration on this platform and that my very, very serious words are not dismissed with laughter and ever new excuses. How outrageous these excuses are at times is beyond belief.
Then this morning my hat almost burst. When my sister asks me how the night was, I make a face and start to write. But before I can type the first word, the nurse interrupts me. With the same lie as every time when the whole flat reeks of alcohol in the morning. I supposedly slept like a rock. No, dude, it's now thirteen. I would be very careful with your assertions about how - quote - retarded everyone else is. Pretty thin ice.
I have not slept like a rock. You slept like a rock. I've wanted to vacuum and get up since 7 o'clock.
My reaction to the nurse's outright lie, 8:45 in the morning in Grünwald
What happened again this morning? Every day a new drama, that can't be normal any more.
In a nutshell, there is exactly one thing that could have avoided all this stress again today. The golden rule should be that everything fits when the patient says it fits. And not when the drunken nurse says it fits. But let's start in order.
| The patient's need | the caretaker's action | |
|---|---|---|
| 7:04 h | Suction and stand up | Go back to sleep, I'll be there in half an hour. |
| 7:06 h | Urgent suction and stand up | Mask tightened so that patient is muzzled (no more leakage alarm possible, does not happen for the first time) |
| 8:01 h | Help, damn it, the mucus is leaking into the airways. Suction and get up | Reluctant to lie on the other side, arm twisted, legs forgotten to lie. And away he went. |
| 8:24 h | Help! | Carer deliberately ignores my alarm |
When the male nurse agrees to let me stand up, at least in a makeshift way, I immediately confront him. Here is the exact wording:
The reaction of the carer clearly showed that I am not in good hands with this care service.
- Exaggerated laughter that is completely out of place.
- He had dreamt that he was with me.
- He had walked in his sleep and was standing in front of the bed. He could still see it clearly in his mind's eye.
- And anyway, he would have dreamt such crap. Laugh. Laugh.
- He thought I didn't want to alarm but that the mask was leaking.
Impudent, unaware of responsibility, ignorant and stupid. Full stop. A new care service is needed. I won't be fooled any longer.
The fact that even the day service noticed first thing at nine in the morning that the whole flat already stank of alcohol right down to the corridor should make you think. At the next day service, the crowning achievement of attentive care: the fact that I have a wound (now bandaged) on my big toe was not noticed during basic care. It only hurt from time to time, unfortunately I didn't pay enough attention to it. That's what I got from it now. As a carer, how can you miss something like that even when washing your feet?
I, for one, am now somehow trying to prevent my panic from this morning from getting any worse than it already is. It's 5pm, 1 Tavor Expedit and 40 drops of Novalgin later, my pulse hasn't even calmed down yet. It has dropped from 120 to 110. Great cinema.