Foley Catheter

Tonight I got to witness my very first Foley Catheter swap out.  I finally got to see the mythical balloon.  They always make you leave the room for this in the hospital, but with home health care I was like I wanna see and they say cooo'.  It did not give me the heebies at all so perhaps I missed my calling.  Are the personality types for software engineers and nurses at all similar?  Probably not.  I think you have to be a people person to be a nurse.  ZOMG they put up with so much.  Although I think the physical therapists receive much more of the abuse. 

Ok sir, now you are going to sit up and move to the edge of the bed.  Can you help me?  I need help.  Im already worn out.  You wore me out.  I can't.  We are done.  And the therapist just goes is this how today is going?  I aint gonna argue with you lets just get it done.  We can work on getting up out of the bed for the whole hour if we need to.  Then they start distracting by talking about something trivial and an hour later he walked through the whole house with his walker and my jaw drops. 

Days when we don't have a nurse or a therapist come to visit are so monotonous.  I will just be honest and say I struggle with chatting and being positive.  It is like I spend all my energy on care of patient and I can't spend any energy on speaking to patient like a normal human or just dropping in to say hi.  It's terrible of me!  The patient really perks up for strangers that come to visit because they genuinely want to chat or have practiced at being chatty or haven't had to care for this particular patient all day.   We hired an angel named Oscar.  He comes 12 hours a week.  He is 65 I think, and is excellent excellent.  I never want him to leave.  He drives 45 minutes on a good traffic day to come visit us.  He really helps to perk the patient up.  Helps with baths.  Trimmed his toenails that are outrageous.  Watches movies with him.  Helped me take him to a Dr appointment one day, so I didn't even have to sweat.  A dr visit requires like 8 patient transfers and I need to work on building up some more muscle because I am worn out at the end.  I am not one of those people that thinks of kind things to do for others like make cookies, or write a note, or pick up starbucks but I need to find a way to express my gratitude towards Oscar and all these therapists and nurses because I would not be surviving without them.  Maybe they can see it in my eyes when they walk in.  Wow....she really needs us! ;) 

Anyways, Hunter got to go have some cervezas with his coworkers which he totally deserves but I had to survive bedtime alone after patient care and it was hard-uh because both kids wanted me to lay by them.  I am going to treat myself to an early bedtime. Can't stop, won't stop.