Confusion/Corrections of a Nurse

By Grace McLaughlin

This particular book was taken from floppy discs from which I recorded nearly daily experiences about what was happening in one adult family home (AFH). The book became much too long, thus I will be writing more books. I will be sharing any profit with an orphanage in Pakistan and with several men spreading the gospel in East Africa. We have been very secure in the USA and are able to perform our duties without interference from the government, other than the people governing AFHs. I truly enjoyed being a nurse; however, I am glad to be retired now. I worked until I was seventy-two years old, becoming disabled from lifting patients for so many years as well as being bucked off horses and lifting one hundred forty pound bales of hay as well as being beaten up by a resident who had a three-year-old mind. She didn't like being told not to go in the laundry room.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973650751

Grace McLaughlin

She was licensed as an LVN in Thousand Oaks, California. Training finished before my Birthday in 1972 at which time I received my license. At that time nurses were just beginning to not wear caps; however Student Nurses had to wear caps. While training in the ER a doctor saw me with a cap on and began giving me orders regarding a very ill child. So much medication per Kilo (the child’s weight). I stopped him and explained I was just a Student and did not yet know what a Kilo was nor what the medication was. I found said doctor a real nurse to take his orders. I learned very quickly while working in the New Born Nursery to insist that a doctor writing orders no leave until he/she read the orders to me; due to most doctors having very poor handwriting. They were very accommodating. There was one incident, not mentioned in the book that a doctor was sued by the parents of a child. Even though the doctor was not in the wrong; the Judge found the Hospital liable and it was the largest settlement in history at the time. I plan to write about four more books about my years as a nurse.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

11/16/03

Pacific Northwest

The day is cold blustery and rainy in the Pacific NW. The ducks and geese are floating on the lake with nothing to do but enjoy life. I would not want to be a duck or a goose, however I would like to be able to just sit and enjoy life for a change. JR and I are not unhappy with our lives. We enjoy our home and our own private lake and the wildlife and our dog Snowflake, cat, Mittens and kitten, Squeeky. We enjoy our residents. We have our own Adult Family Home (AFH) and finally very good help. Not so, just a year ago. Mamma moved in and it was wonderful. Mamma and I did everything together. Daddy told me if I took her he would pay my wages and medical insurance if I quit my job and took care of Mamma. Mamma had fallen for the one hundredth time I am sure. At first we put her at Assisted living where I worked at the time as a nurse. The work was hard and it sounded really nice not to be responsible for sixty five people, usually pulling a double shift on most nights. One time the night nurse fell in the icy snow and broke her ankle getting out of the car to come into work. I had to call 911 and for six weeks I worked a double. The new night nurse was very nice. I really liked her. She was a large person and had a sweet personality, however she admitted to being Bipolar. I believe after I left, that they had to let her go. She told me she had been let go from her previous job due to her wigging out or some such term. Another nurse got into the drugs and was found lost in the halls when the morning nurse arrived. This is hear say. I don’t know anything for sure. I just know I loved that job and would have kept on had it not been for Mamma needing placement. She did not do well at assisted living, as she had been taking her own medication and one of her medications Coumadin (Warfarin). I couldn’t tell by reading the instructions how much she was supposed to take so I’m sure she had no idea. I was not sure at that point how or how much she was taking. It is a dangerous drug. It is what they put in rat poison to cause rats to bleed to death. Mamma fell and began to hemorrhage and soon, following several days of Vitamin K injections she was sent to the ER and given two units of blood. Assisted Living kept calling me to come back to work, if only part time. This was following my resignation. I really loved it there, although bending over the cart to get medications out of the lower drawers and treatment drawer, plus narcotics which were double locked in the lower drawer, was hard on my knees and back. I still have trouble and I am in the process of knee and back injections. They have helped tremendously, however it wears off and they can only do the knees three or four times a year. I will call Monday and see how long I must wait.

CHAPTER 2

Mamma living with just myself and JR.

Mamma and I went everywhere together. Dr. Stiner told Mamma she could not go home to live with Daddy any longer, as he was too weak and frail and could not pick her up when she fell. He kept calling us to come pick her up off the floor. One night Daddy called at eight PM and said Mamma is down. I said, we’ll be right there. We found Mamma on the floor wedged between the bed and the dresser and commode. She had been using a commode for a number of years since her surgery to put a double Harrington Rod in her back. She was so bent over that the doctor felt if he put the rod straight up, it would help her stand straight. The doctors fitted her with a brace; however she hated it and after awhile she refused to wear it. Finally she was as bent over as ever. She was able to walk better though. Currently the top of the rod shows through her skin and makes everyone sick when they see it. The skin covers it. It doesn’t seem to bother her. She has lots of complaints, however, not about that. The doctors offered to open up the tissue and trim off the rod, but she says No to any more surgery, even minor surgery. Mamma and Daddy spent quite a few years living by themselves. They actually could have continued living that way; however they were never happy with any help. Even if I went over, Mamma would say, I don’t do it that way. I was not paid help. They had to pay fifteen dollars an hour for girls to come in and stay for a few hours and make them food. I took them food often and Church friends did the same, however they liked my food the best, probably due to Mamma having taught me to cook her way. If they would have been willing to spend their money on live in help or daily help, they could have stayed in their home. It is hard to reason with people once they age. Mamma and Daddy both have always wanted to be in charge. Age probably hasn’t anything to do with it. I have been lying here all night trying to figure out how we can build on our home and continue to live here and enjoy the place and not have to work so hard myself since I am sixty-six years old.

CHAPTER 3

My Own Disabilities.

I do love my work, however my body is not happy with some of the things required of it, such as picking up Debbie when she goes down. Her weight requires three to four people to lift her. We got a script for a Hoyer lift. I just have to get it in the works and hope and pray the State (DSHS) will approve it. Debbie’s Doctor complimented me that we had taken over one hundred pounds off her. We didn’t put her on a diet, but since she was a brittle diabetic, meaning insulin dependant and on sliding scale, we fed her as she was supposed to eat and the weight just came off. Sliding scale consists of our checking her blood sugar (glucose). Then giving her the amount of Insulin compatible with the reading.

A Hoyer lift is a large hammock like machine that helps us lift Debbie up. She is still heavy and with one hundred pounds off she is less solid and skin and fat move when we handle her.

Thank God the Hoyer lift was approved and we got it yesterday. I still had to get Gwen up to the bathroom the other night, as the night person who lives in the mobile home rent free for taking night shift asked if she could go home and take a shower and I said, Yes. Stupid me, and Murphy’s law. Gwen woke up when Penny was gone. I will not repeat that mistake again.

Tonight I think we might build onto the other side of the house and make this two Adult Family Homes with six more residents in the other end. That way we could employ more people and if Mark comes he could go to school and help with patient care and business. Mark is my oldest son. I think the septic is big enough and if not we have an area we could put more in. The new well if sufficient for all and all we would have to do is put in a larger pressure tank. I wonder if DSHS (Department of Human and Health Services.) would allow us to have two AFH’s (Adult Family Homes on the same property. I may try to fax Dorothy tomorrow and see if we can do it. I am so excited about it, I can’t sleep.

Mark worked many years for a company named Ball, who was hired by Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL). Mark was making nearly one hundred ninety thousand dollars a year with Ball. JPL decided to do away with Ball. While Mark was still working there; one of his jobs was to backup all the computers on tape. Some lady, working for JPL deleted all the tapes and Mark and management were very upset. Mark could build a computer from scratch. Both my Son’s are Guru’s with computers. They didn’t inherit that ability from me.

CHAPTER 4

The Home I spent my last two years of High School.

The home where I spent my last two years of high school days sat nearly on the Freeway. The freeway was once where Lady, my horse, roamed on ten acres on what was once a strawberry farm. We had moved from California to Washington State with Mobil Oil when I was sixteen. Daddy was transferred, along with a number of people from California and Olean New York. Many of the families had teens and most of us went to Ferndale High School. My brother and my girlfriends’ brother were out of school. My brother joined the US Air Force and her brother joined the US Navy. These were bittersweet times. My brother and girlfriend fell in love and her brother and I did as well. I couldn’t tell her brother or her I had already been intimate with my ex boyfriend. I was only fourteen when I was dating him. He was nineteen and in his second year of College. I refused to have anything to do with him if he smoked or drank. As it turned out he had been smoking and drinking, however he lied to me and said he didn’t. The cigarettes I found in his glove compartment, he said were for his mother. I was just ignorant enough to not realize cigarettes would get stale just sitting in a glove compartment.

One of my friends was getting married at age fourteen and there was a bridal shower for her in Inglewood, California. Adolph Leuzinger High School, where we all attended, was right on the border of Lawndale and Hawthorne. Inglewood was the next town. I was allowed to go with my boyfriend to the shower. Someone brought in an ice chest full of beer. My boyfriend took one and I got up and walked out. I didn’t know there was going to be drinking. I began walking home in the dark. I wasn’t sure where home was and I had never even heard of a Taxi. I had never been in a housing tract in Inglewood. I’d been in Inglewood shopping with my Mother. The stores were all on the main road. I really didn’t know where I was in this housing tract. It didn’t occur to me to go to a home and ask to use a phone to call Daddy to come get me. There was no such thing as a cell phone in those days. Anyway, my boyfriend discovered I was gone and he came with his car and found me. I was happy to get in as I was frightened. He apologized and said he would never do it again. He drove to a secluded vacant lot and we started necking. He said he loved me and I said I loved him. He said if I