I know what you mean, Jax. One can be just so empathethic. There seems to be a limit. It is the understaffing here. It is affecting everyone. She was telling me the reason she left her last job was due to being burned out because of the hours. Eight hours is like my max on endurance. She told me last night to quit being heman and she would help me lift the residents or I would have a backache like her. Overachieving can kill ya. They just made the gait belts mandatory. Ever try to use a gait belt on someone who is like a limp wash rag? And the small bathrooms are really a problem because they are small even for one person almost. Just lost another good aide because of back injuries and they expect us to be super people and do the impossible. The ones who do the overtime I so feel for their families. Sure they are making extra money but I can't help but think of what it is taking away from their homelife. Fortunately for me I really don't have a homelife but for the married ones and ones with boyfriends it really taks it course. My one friend told me that if I ever get a girlfriend that this place would miss me. I just love watching the show scrubs. Yeah, this place I work is like St. Elsewhere.

Whats funny to me is the nurses since they have 12 hour shifts. I come in and since they have already worked 4 hours on second shift and have 8 hours to go. It is like talk to hand. It is like what I just got here. I have really learned how to tiptoe around them until they can collect themselves. It is like an emotional nightmare some days. They are catching hell from home and then their jobs not to mention just trying to do their jobs. I have heard the nurses say so many times to aides that she doesn't want to hear it and for them just to do their jobs. Little volcanoes errupting left and right. It is enough to make one just run and hide. I told by one nurse since the other aide didn't show up can I go home. She said don't you dare leave me alone.

yeah we have a high resident to aide ratio also.thank god for humor.i would never be an lna..**** kills!!

Yeah, the laughter really helps as long as I stay alway from the hysterical laughter. I really don't want to be put in a rubber room. I can take just about anything to the extreme. It is like laugh before you scream and lose it. Laughter helps me to keep the rage away. The new aide has a good healthy laugh but she hasn't been there very long. I hope she can really appreciate while she can. We cut up most of the night and communicate well. Atleast I know dayshift won't take her away. Pissed me off every time I would orientate one and they would go to dayshift or second shift. I sure ain't a superman. I couldn't find the cape if I had one.

your funnie roy

Thanks, Babs. It is helpful to have a sense of humor about stuff.

just thought i better check in................haven't felt like doing crap because of these teeth......i've got three darvocets and sleeping pill in my system, the pain is a dull roar but i'm terrified to go bed since i tend to lie on my left side, which happens to be side with the pain............damned if i do and damned if i don't...........i haven't slept since i got up thursday because of the pain..........it is driving and my parents batty..........they said they'll use the money from the stimulus check to get my two worst teeth pulled....

i feel ya sister.my pain went thru my whole face till i went to the emergency room.they lanced my abcess and the pain was instantly gone.i was ready to commit suicide it was so bad.

My daughter is in the same boat. She has several teeth in the back that are rotted to the gumline and below. I just thank God none of them have abcessed. I didn't think about the stimulus check....maybe if I get one I can get her teeth fixed....thanks for the idea, and I do hope you can get your fixed soon......

i was at that point yesterday.....i ended up beggin dad for some darvocet, and when he told me where they were i popped a couple, but it didn't completely kill the pain, but i was finally able to sleep.....took three darvocet about an hour ago and i'm chompin down big time....i haven't been able to eat in a couple days.........

Amber you need to get those teeth fixed. If they are abscessed the infection can get into your blood stream and cause severe problems or even go into your brain and kill you. You can't fool around with abscessed teeth. Go to the emergency room to get antibiotics for the infection and ask them how to get treatment, they should have a list of resources, maybe some agencies in town that may help pay for it. They will only get worse. We have a community action program here and they have some resources for some things, I don't know what all they help with, some prescription copays and such, but the emergency room should know what is available. If the hospital has a social worker, they also know what resources are available out there too. Maybe there is a dentist who will take payments and do the work now and take minimal payments until the stimulus check arrives, I don't know, but you can't walk around with those teeth like that, you could end up in really serious trouble.

marie, i would if there any way i could do it, but there isn't.....besides the pain is taking my mind off the crap going on around here.....


had a really crappy day yesterday thanks to the ***** i have for a stepmom....here's what happened:

my dad cooked a turkey with the usual thanksgiving side dishes yesterday. well everybody's ate and it's time to do the dishes (and unfortunately it is my turn), seeing as just about ALL the dishes in the house were dirty, i cleaned up the dishes in the kitchen area first. i finished those up and was about to take a break and eat a piece of sweet potatoe pie when all of a sudden my stepmom asked in a nasty tone who was washing dishes. i answered i was, but seeing as how i just got half of them done i was gonna take a little break (hey i was entitled, seeing as how my back was already killing me, not to mention my head from the tooth and my stepsister's youngest daughter screaming in my ear everytime tears came to my eyes from my tooth). stepmom muttered something under her breath, talking to my dad and she was expecting him to be able to hear her without his hearing aids....which is stupid of her to do because she knows damn well he's nearly legally deaf. when i heard my stepmom muttering under her breath, i got upset because **** like that tears my nerves up (all thanks to the ex). so she's pissed because i'm washing dishes.......i said to myself possibly loud enough for her to hear, "**** this gd ****, i guess i can't take a ****in break even though noone even offered to ****in help" and put my plate i got down to eat the pie and put it up. My dad, meantime, is paying close attention to her and trying to figure out what she said and he made the fatal mistake of asking her what she said. After doing that she just "ups" and leaves (she didn't actually get up seeing as how she uses her wheelchair and won't get up for ****). Stepsister looks at me as if she couldn't believe what she just saw and asked me if her mom had been like for the past few days. I said yeah, and i told her about some of the other things.....like my stepmom jumping on me because my nerves are bad (she told me that i had a ****ty attitude and that i was driving everyone crazy). that right there kind of pissed my stepsister off with my stepmom because i started crying thinking about it and all. it's true i have been a little ill (okay, i've been as ill as a wet hen), but damn, what does one expect when you don't get any sleep for nearly five days in a row (because everytime you were nearly asleep your tooth would starting bad enough you wanted to scream and by the time you FINALLY fall asleep dad woke me up for breakfast). My stepmom told my stepsister, and i quote, "well every time we start talking talking and one of us gets a little loud, she" (talking about me), "runs to her room and that's getting on EVERYONE ELSE'S nerves". that upset me so bad i ended up saying, "what the **** do you expect when you're as ****ed up in the head as i am! i can't take a lot of screaming and yelling and i told you this from the beginning when y'all came to pick me up" my stepsister just looked at her mom like she wanted to kill her....my stepsister didn't know how i really felt about myself most of the time when someone jumps on me because i seem a little ill or upset. my stepsister told my stepmom she needed to remember that i have bad nerves yeah, i might be ill as a snake, but that was to be expected when you are out of medicine (yes honey i'm out of medicine for the next couple of weeks or until the meds get here) and stepsister also told her that she needed to remember that my dad can't hear very well. it's not like my stepmom doesn't know what the hell i go through with the mood swings....she admits that she is bipolar too.....she won't take medication for it but is trigger happy when it comes to subject of possibly having my dad committed (he's driving us batty with the violent mood swings and now also wants to keep one his shotguns in the bedroom). which isn't the best idea he's had considering he has vietnam style PTSD............and stepmom's scared to death of him....i am too since he threw a bottle full of water at me a couple of weeks ago.

that's pretty much what i have to deal with everyday here....

(((amber))) that definately sounds like a dysfunctional situation. Im so sorry you have to deal with that. You are a sweet person and I hope things will change for you soon.

The tooth is 1st and formost then the meds situation. That sounds bad to me. I know Im facing the same situation with insurance, and it can be very hard to cope with. Are you going to or looking for another place to live? Just wondering. Anyway, I hope you get to feeling better soon hugs, Karen

Sorry Amber about everything you are going through. It does sound like your step sister is supportive of you though. I would feel like running to my room too if I was being treated that way.I am a mess without one night of sleep, let alone five days. Hang in there.

Karen, i told my boyfriend what had happened here at the house yesterday......he's wanting us to move in together when i get on my feet (ie, when my disability pulls through)........he's really worried that i'm gonna end up in the hospital again like i did back February just before he and i got serious (that hospital pushed us closer than ever). so yeah, i'm looking for my place as soon as i get the disability.....but i'm looking at it this way, the worse it gets here, the more likely i'll end up starting to zone out for hours like i did when was teenager putting up with it (i lived with my dad and stepmom for a year when i was sixteen)....and zoning out like that will help my case a LOT.

either way i'm damned if i do and damned if i don't.

amber, im glad to hear you have a back up plan in the works. keep on moving along and i hope they dont drive you nuts and im glad at least your sis sticks up for you

yeah, my stepsister likes me now that she succeeded in having DSS take my daughter away from me four years ago.........i have a f*cked up family

Got called in to work last night. Had one day off and it was nice. Nurse asked me nicely and had a lot of charting to do. One aide had to go home because she had a seizure. It was the younger old lady. That still cracks me up. I can't help it. i mean she is 26 and her girlfriend is 29. I remember my ex telling me she didn't how old she got she didn't ever want me to call her the old lady. Now she is telling me she is finally going to get a divorce from her husband. Geez, I thought she was already divorced. Live and learn I guess. So any ways she comes running down the hall happy to see me and hugs me because she thought she was going to have to work the hall alone. It reminded me of when I was getting off the bus and my five sisters would run up to hug me when I was younger. So we work our collective asses off night doing wet checks; Answering call lights are starting to get people dressed for breakfast when the third aide from dayshift starts with giving her a hard time. By this time she tells me that if one more starts in on her that she is clocking out and never coming back. I am telling her not to let it get to her and that I thought she has done a great job all night. You just can't please everybody all the time. It just doesn't work that way in real life. It is like a deja vu that I had before at another job when a guy told me that he was glad I lost my temper because it allowed him to keep his because he was going to blow if I didn't. In a little while I had her cutting up laughing.

Thought id give a update. i got a phone call today from a company about having a phone interview. basically what I'd be doing at the job i was scared about but they are a bigger company so i wont get scared away. i believe its a full time position (their gonna send me the info on it soon) and hopefully it might be the start of something..

im kinda lonely a lot still but im trying to be positive but its very scary