The Chronicles of a Caregiver

Unacceptable Behavior, Immaturity and more

As a caregiver you should know the basics perineal care, feeding assistance, meal prep, brief changes, light house work, doing dishes and so on so on. Ive had two horrible experiences with other caregivers (And supervisors). I will be going over them and explaining why this behavior is unacceptable. But, the most unacceptable behavior I have ever seen came yesterday.

I arrive at my clients house 8:00 am in the morning. I get there between 7:57-8:00 Ive only been late once and that was due to a major ice storm.

I have a 24 hour client. Pretty simple to explain as she cannot be left alone. Someone must be with her 24/7. Pretty simple right? Well you would think anyway.

Yesterday morning I arrived at 8:00 am and the previous caregiver was already gone. You are supposed to stay until the hand off caregiver is there so you can get updates on how things were over night. You are not allowed to leave before a caregiver comes, since she is a 24 hour client, this is completely unacceptable.

One of our most important tasks is to help with toileting and stand by assistance. When I arrived yesterday my client was confused on why no one was there. She was in the middle of going to the bathroom and she was calling for help because she had no toilet paper or fresh pair of depends.

I cant tell you how livid I was about this as this is not okay what so ever and ontop of that it is against our policy. We must stay until the other caregiver comes. Ill freely stay extra hour even if it's inconvenient luckily my work is very flexible and if I have a phone appointment during that time they let me do it as long as I am with eyes and ears of my client.

But back to the topic of you should never leave a 24 hour client. I was not late I arrived at 8:00 am. So it wasnt like I was 5-10 minutes late. I was right on time. So she should not have left as I was ontime.

I talked to the caregiver this morning (a different one) and she said that is completely unacceptable at all. Theres so many things that can happen in a split second, she can fall, she can get confused and scared on why no one is there, she gets scared and confused when I go to the bathroom forgetting that she had someone there, which is why I now announce that Im going to the bathroom for she doesn't think I left.

I honestly don't understand why people leave when they aren't supposed to. If someone has to leave at 7:00 Ill come in early.

Now we go onto the next chapter, Immaturity.

On Mondays and Thursdays I have this one hand off caregiver where she relieves me (on monday) and I relieve her (on Thursdays)

She is around 65 years old and Ive never met a more immature caregiver. She reported me (falsely) for my actions. Accusing me of not taking out the trash, not doing dishes and not making the bed, or not showing her.

That particular day I couldnt take out any trash as there were NO trash bags. Also on that particular day I gave my client lunch and she finished 3 minutes before I left so I had absolutely no time to do the four dishes as I had to paper chart. So a few things I wasnt able to do that day. She also said Im not making her bed which is not in the care plan and its much easier the way I leave it as she has a hard time moving her blankets due to how frail she is. Then she reported me for not showering her, I talked to my manager and said I cannot shower her due to my dislocated shoulder so they changed she shower day to Thursdays but they didnt keep the care manager in loop (so I got the bad end which I will explain in a little bit.)

The caregiver that We trade off will not talk to me. And I mean at all wont say hi, wont greet me, nothing. She will literally wait outside until I leave so she doesn't have to come inside with me. I'll mention again she is 65 years old and again that behavior is composed unacceptable. A professional caregiver giving another caregiver the silent treatment. And especially at a clients house. I would "understand" if it was outside of work but that is unacceptable and a clients house. Which this brings me to wrong end of communication.

The care manager (who makes careplans etc) called me one day and just accused me saying she had all the evidence that Im not doing my job (and of course it was on that particular day where I couldn't do some of my tasks)

She said some really hurtful things and I was absolutely upset because I know I do my job, hell I go above and beyond for her. I will buy her food if she doesn't have any, bring soap because the family doesn't provide proper hand hygiene products and more. So I absolutely know I do my job what upset me the most is that this was the fifth time she called me. It was the first. I did get two more calls due to the crossfire of horrible communication.

She said "I have photo evidence of you not doing your job" Of course then I went into fight, flight and freeze. First I went into fight mode but she wouldn't even let me explain myself. She kept saying "Im not here to argue" and I just wanted to say "Im not arguing Im trying to explain my side". But I want smart enough to not say that. I also wanted to say "show me the proof" but again that would've been another stupid move so I came out of fight mode and just froze just saying yes... okay.. you know those short responses. Then she mentioned my shoulder which I dislocated in January and Ive had limited motion to it. This is what hurt the most because I am strong and resilient and I put my happy face on even when Im having the roughest days.  She said "well is your shoulder getting in the way. I dont even know if I could go on with  a dislocated shoulder" then she baby talked to me which was the most upsetting me saying that I need to promise her I can do my job with my shoulder.

Somehow I always get in the cross fire of miscommunication. When I first worked with my client there was no gloves and with the laws I am absolutely not allowed to do any pericare, disposing of depends, doing pills and more. So I called the office Letting them know we were out of gloves and they said okay we will get you some and of course the care manager called me and accused saying you need to call me not the office (which it says to call the office and not anyone in particular)

Another instance was when I was giving my client medication and she was low on one of the pills I assumed (wrong) that someone else called it in because I was gone for three days. But I called it in anyway telling the office and again miscommunication, I was blamed for not telling anyone about the meds being low.

Being in the crossfire of poor communications as they can be false alligations.

We have to paper chart, as I said earlier, we write everything in the binder and I wrote everything down and no one looked at the charting what I wrote saying on all
Those incidents happened for a reason. And the care manager did not read those and was very biased and only listened to one side.

Those were three of the most immature and unacceptable examples that have happened to me. But I cant let that me down of course as we still have to
Make our clients happy and comfortable no matter how shitty of a day you're having.