You could say I dropped the Ball...
If by "the ball" you meant a 375 lb. woman. Yeah. That was not a high point tonight at work.
I was trying to get this woman washed up and dressed this morning. Normally we use an EZ-Stand contraption pictured below. It also has a blue harness, but in order to put it on around the resident and then attach it to the red handle hooks (again, refer to illustration), the person has to be close enough for it to hook in.
Buuuuut... this woman had these hugie blue plastic boot-things on to protect her bum ankles. Normally this is no problem, but they were impeding our ability to manuever the EZ-Stand close enough to her. The bed height needed to be adjusted. At this point, however, I had already hoisted her dead-weight into a sitting position and was physically holding her there (she's pretty much immobile save some minor to moderate upper body strength)... consequently it was quite the reach. So as I'm reaching around full stretch trying to get the bed down a mere 4 inches or so, she starts panicking a little and pulling with her hands on the EZ-Stand... resulting in pulling her weight FORWARD... resulting in the beginning of her descent to the floor.
I really thought I could stop it. So I grit my teeth, abandoned trying to adjust the height, and focussed on throwing all my weight against her sliding body.
And then there was a flash of clarity where I realized, duh Maggie, you can't stop the fall of a 375 lb. woman. It's just not happening. So, true to my training, I changed my objective to "easing her fall." Old people's bones seem to be made of porcelain and their skin tears like tissue. I was DETERMINED not to have either of those scenarios.
So I "eased" her down. But what really ended up happening in the process was in easing her fall, I mainly just broke her fall.
... and took all 375 lbs. on my inner thigh, trapping a leg and an arm beneath her. It was soooooo painful and hard to get my leg free. My leg is... not happy. BUT! On the bright side, she was completely fine. It was incredibly embarrassing, though. I mean, come on. I dropped an old lady. I know accidents happen-- I just don't want them happening to ME. Poor old lady. I must say, the whole thing was a rather undignified and an unfortunate way to start the day.
I was trying to get this woman washed up and dressed this morning. Normally we use an EZ-Stand contraption pictured below. It also has a blue harness, but in order to put it on around the resident and then attach it to the red handle hooks (again, refer to illustration), the person has to be close enough for it to hook in.
Buuuuut... this woman had these hugie blue plastic boot-things on to protect her bum ankles. Normally this is no problem, but they were impeding our ability to manuever the EZ-Stand close enough to her. The bed height needed to be adjusted. At this point, however, I had already hoisted her dead-weight into a sitting position and was physically holding her there (she's pretty much immobile save some minor to moderate upper body strength)... consequently it was quite the reach. So as I'm reaching around full stretch trying to get the bed down a mere 4 inches or so, she starts panicking a little and pulling with her hands on the EZ-Stand... resulting in pulling her weight FORWARD... resulting in the beginning of her descent to the floor.
I really thought I could stop it. So I grit my teeth, abandoned trying to adjust the height, and focussed on throwing all my weight against her sliding body.
And then there was a flash of clarity where I realized, duh Maggie, you can't stop the fall of a 375 lb. woman. It's just not happening. So, true to my training, I changed my objective to "easing her fall." Old people's bones seem to be made of porcelain and their skin tears like tissue. I was DETERMINED not to have either of those scenarios.
So I "eased" her down. But what really ended up happening in the process was in easing her fall, I mainly just broke her fall.
... and took all 375 lbs. on my inner thigh, trapping a leg and an arm beneath her. It was soooooo painful and hard to get my leg free. My leg is... not happy. BUT! On the bright side, she was completely fine. It was incredibly embarrassing, though. I mean, come on. I dropped an old lady. I know accidents happen-- I just don't want them happening to ME. Poor old lady. I must say, the whole thing was a rather undignified and an unfortunate way to start the day.
Labels: awkward, Nursing Home, Ramble, work
posted by mags at 9:25 AM
2 Comments:
Haha. I guess this isnt supposed to be funny but it is...maybe i'm just an insensitive biotch.
I'm just envisioning a new line of ads for the next generation: "Help, I've been thrown down by a nurse and I can't get up!"
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