Why are you so mean?

As I said last night as I was about to leave work, I think that working with older folks every now and then is healthy. Gives one a good chance to exercise those patience muscles, something I myself struggle with. This past weekend I was on-call, which means that for the duration of one weekend I could be called to work any shift on any unit. On Saturday I got a call asking to work my regular shift with the older folks. Oh yeah, and you can't say no. So for the majority of the night, when I wasn't getting nearly hit or kicked or trying to keep a patient quiet, I was busy trouble shooting one patient and trying to keep another off me so he would stop hitting me. Apparently I got married that night too. Yet yesterday I gave him a banana and he didn't remember me. So it goes.

This was me. Several times Saturday night and yesterday.

So Saturday came and went, and ended up working half of a first shift on Sunday on the chemical dependency unit, which is always a pleasure. And no I'm not being sarcastic. But yesterday I came into work to find out I was on a 1:1 on the older folks unit. When a patient is on a 1:1, they are on one for various reasons just for keeping them safe. Some of those reasons could be that they fell a lot, they're mean, they're going through really bad withdrawals, what have you. Anyway, I was with a pretty sweet lady throughout the night, until close to bed time she got a little bit upset. Again, see the above picture. While I was on this 1:1 I made some new friends along the way, as patients would sit around and talk to me and the patient I was with. While I was on my 1:1, we talked about her life growing up on a farm and the school she used to go to, which is where she thought she was near the end of the night....and that's where the somewhat agitation started. There was one patient in particular that was quite troublesome for not only myself but for the rest of the staff. She tried to hit everyone, knocked her drink over and threw her dinner tray. Nope, not brush it off the table, actually threw it. She then proceeded to yell and scream "help" at random times. All nurses were working on that unit last night, and one that I've worked with before was over there too and was determined to figure out why she was so mean. In one night she called me pretty, ugly, ignorant and..."crappy." (I censored it). We were having an actually nice conversation and then "SHUT UP. Don't talk to me. Don't even look at me." While I stopped talking to her and wasn't looking at her, she continued to call me all sorts of names. Normally that would bother me, but it didn't. Roll with the punches. She told the other nurses to shut up and even told one "just lie down and die." Twas lovely. 

I really don't think that I sometimes get paid enough to do this job, hahahaha. And I still have to work today. I have worked 6 days in a row. Re affirms that I could not do this job full time, regardless of which unit I work on. Looking forward to some days off this week, then back at it this weekend. Oy.