sisofeleven: April 2009

So as I am sure you all know and have experienced either first or second hand or someone you know has experienced the job market is not a place you want to be searching on in this day and age. I mean really I would not like to be out looking for a job especially when I have a perfectly good one and it is in no jeopardy of running out or not having enough work or my boss laying some of us off for a period of weeks. In this profession that just doesn't happen. So I was very surprised when at work today to of the employee's left for lunch and never came back. After an hour of no phone calls, no car wrecks or other accidents reported no new admits in the hospital ect well what was the boss to do but call the state and turn them in for resident abandonment. I mean who would jeopardize their job in this day and age like that??? This means that these people can never work any where in the state again at their job or for that matter any other state. Now how can you really feel sorry for people like that? Well that is how my night went how is your day going?

Did you ever have one of those winters where they kept predicting storms all winter long but you only got 2-3 inches and it was gone by morning? We have had one of those winters here. A few weeks ago we had this big storm that was supposed to be really bad moving in so we were all prepared to stay at work or bunk down at home which ever was the case. Well we got a lot of wind some snow flurries and it was really cold but nothing else happened except they closed all the roads and interstate because of the wind so there were a lot of trucks by the interstate. They even closed school for 2 days.

So when this storm was coming we thought what ever or yeah right here we go again with a lot of hoopla about nothing when they said they were closing the interstate AGAIN! The first 6 pictures (from the bottom up) where on the way to work on Sat. We had blowing snow so a blizzard and it was coming down pretty fast. We still had all of our winter stuff in the car but this time I didn't think of grabbing an extra set of scrubs or my purse with meds in it. We did send Floyd to the grocery store to pick up snack food when we got to work as they had closed down the hill to anyone but truckers because the police where trying to direct traffic so there was not a lot of choice for supper. So Floyd went and got the necessities for us. Cigarettes for the smokers, chocolate, pop and chips for the rest of us. Thank goodness he did because at 5pm they closed the roads in town to anything except for an emergency and we were stuck, me at work and Floyd over at Jims. We had one of the girls boy friends deliver pizza as pizza hut was only delivering to walmart and the motels up on the hill.

The residents were all relaxed and enjoying the snow fall in their nice warm rooms so we had an easy afternoon but were kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop as everything was going so well. After supper when we had about 15 people in the living room watching the movie and eating popcorn the other shoe did drop. We lost all of our power except the emergency lights in the hall ways. You should have heard the screams. I'm okay if I walk into a dark room or know its going to be dark but I was in the middle of a room pushing a resident in a wheel chair to bed and of course had the door shut. Lol I don't know who I was trying to reassure more the resident or myself. It just took me a minuet to figure out all I had to do was crack the door and I would have enough light in the room to put this person to bed. The other logistics took most of the rest of the night though to figure out. I mean in a nursing home we have, oxygen concentrators that plug in, air mattresses, electric beds, electric bed alarms, and electric heat/air units in all the rooms not to mention the lights.
Well most of us kept our heads and we found some flash lights so could go around in pairs and put people to bed and finish passing meds. The people in the living room were quite entertained by all the commotion and just sat and watched us run around for the most part until we could get them to bed. Most of the staff also kept their heads and stayed calm which really helped out a lot because the one who didn't was working residents up and that was the last thing we needed.
As they had closed the roads in town and had absolutely no car travel there were three of us plus the house keeper that ended up spending the night. Hospital beds aren't that bad when you have nothing else. We got extra blankets and bunked down for the night at the end of our shift prepared to start work in the morning if no one else could make it in. At 5am we got the call that everyone had 4wheel drive or big pickups so they didn't need us and if we wanted we could head for home. Well I was sure happy so called my husband who thought he would just bring the car to get me. HAHA. Fortunately a police stopped outside the house and told him that cars were not advised on the road at this time as they would get stuck. There were 3-4 ft drifts in the roads and it was still snowing at this time. SO he decided to wait until Jim woke up. By this time everyone else had left work in cars or pickups. Glad I didn't to with the cars because sure enough they got stuck. At about 7am I finally called my sister and asked her to call her husband because my husband would not go wake him up and I had no where to sit except our break room and by this time I was really tired and wanted to go home. So she called and woke him up and soon I had a ride home. I crawled back in bed and went to sleep as I needed to be back at work at 1:40 and had no idea what the weather would be like by then. The second set of pictures is driving back to work on Sun and at work. The top pictures are today Monday. The streets are pretty clear and a lot of the snow has melted.