Day 38 of Singledom

Everyday at work I feel like I get more and more disgruntled. I try to keep that part of me that wants to scream at doctors, nurses and patients in check but the more I see the more I get annoyed. First off, when I pick up a patient from the hospital I am either taking him/her home or to a nursing facility, I would assume that someone has been around this patient in the last 2 hours to clear them for take off, right? No. I am constantly walking into a room with a patient who has clearly been sitting in his own piss and or feces for the last couple of hours. I will then contact the nurse and tell them that we will not take the patient till he is cleaned, diapered and on new sheets. Most are annoyed with having to find a CNA or someone else lowly to do the job but there are some other nurses who look ashamed for trying to discharge a patient that way and get in there and do it themselves. Unfortunately there is that 1 out of 10 times that we don't know until we have moved the patient that he/she is soiled and now has contaminated our cot.

As much as that irks me number 1 on my shit list is obese patients. I am not talking about just a little husky, I mean the 300plus club. I am sure I will offend some people but that isn't my intention, just stating my opinion of morbidly obese people who do not have any desire to help themselves the minute they see us but they can walk perfectly fine to the kitchen and make a sandwich or 2 or 3 prior to our arrival. I have had some obese patients who truly are sick and truly can't get up or move themselves, these patients are treated like any other sick patient I have. But there is quite a few that seem to think we are there to cater to them.

Yesterday our patient answered the door with a donut in his hand walking around the apartment looking for his snack bag to take to hospital with him. He wanted to go to hospital because he was short of breath. When we asked him if he could walk down the stairs to our cot he gave us this shocked look and said "I am short of breath, I can't walk around." What?! We had to wait for a lift assist (another crew that comes to help) for this 340lb man and he actually tried to get shitty with me when he found out my partner and myself wouldn't be able to do it alone, "Why can't you do your job by yourselves?" I told him our "JOB" is not to carry him down 2 flights of stairs because we are not working for a moving company. My "JOB" is to render aid to sick and possibly dying to ensure that they arrive to a higher level of care in a timely manner, now if he would like to roll himself down the stairs we could get the party started. Some people just don't appreciate brutal honesty.