• southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      So, this is a favorite story among my friends, and I enjoy telling it.

      Back in 92, I was a freshly graduated high school student and CNA. My first job as a CNA was in a nursing home. For the most part, my pairings e were pretty awesome considering it was a skilled unit with patients in pretty severe conditions.

      I’d get groped (and I’m a dude that officially only had male patients), cursed, spit on, hit, etc. But most of them that acted up weren’t malicious, just lost you Alzheimer’s or other dementia

      But there was this one dude. Alzheimer’s, but fairly able to do things. He hated me. He called me bill and would flip the fuck out when he’d see me. Bill was his brother. Bill looked nothing like me, I met Bill because his daughter worked in the admin office. Bill fucked my patient’s wife. Several times.

      Anyway. Part of the job is bathing patients. Bed baths daily, showers at least every third day in most cases.

      The shower room had stalls. They were about three to four feet wide and about six feet deep. Why? Fucked if I know, it was the worst layout I ever saw.

      To give a patient their shower, you’d wheel them up to the stall, pivot the shower chair, and nudge it into the stall sideways. Not a great plan.

      Shower chairs are wheelchairs, but with a padded toilet seat so you can get in there and wash balls n butts.

      I think you can see where this is going.

      You see, “john”, the patient that hated me was Alzheimered out, but sneaky.

      One day, he drops a washcloth inside the stall. Can’t reach over him because he bited and punches. So it’s under the chair or nothing.

      It took him a couple of times to get me in position, on a knee, my head partway under the chair.

      And he plops a hot, sloppy turd right on my neck.

      I come up cussing and screaming.

      John is laughing so hard he keeps shitting. He’s screaming “I got you Bill, I got you, you piece of shit!”

      I damn near quit that day took a 25cent raise and a weekend off to keep me coming back. Shoulda held out for more lol, this is a small town and there weren’t any other male CNAs at the time, since the guy before me had moved to Baltimore.

      Now, you’d think I wouldn’t have had him as a patient after that. Nope. He was too violent, and too strong for the rest of the staff. There was one other CNA that could hang with him, and she worked nights. Dude broke my nose once, caught my eye with a solid left hook, almost poked the same eye, left gouges in my arms many times, and left bruises all over me regularly.

      Surprisingly, despite being not yet 19 when I quit that facility, I never lost my shit with him. You’d think some young dude would have flipped and hurt the old fucker. Ngl, I thought about it a few times. And I did have to throw him once to keep us both from getting hurt when he went for my throat, but I threw him on the bed.

      But shit, the facility paid every medical bill incurred with no delay, and made sure I had time off when I asked for it. Which was better than a lot of the other staff got. They still got injury related bills covered, but not the time off on demand lol. When you’re the only person on staff that can pick up 300+ lb patients, and handle the violent ones without hurting them, you get a little extra perk here and there.