Protecting

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2009
Today, I had another adventure. I had noticed in Dad’s underwear when I washed them that there was a strange stain in the front of his underwear….it looked like a pus stain. That puzzled me as I had done his laundry for awhile and never seen this. So today when I was there I told Dad that I wanted to check his belly and when I did, I discovered that his underwear and pants were wet. His bag was leaking. On further examination, I found that the seal between the faceplate and the bag was not on correctly. It hadn’t been snapped all the way and it was leaking slowly out as he moved around. I went to tell his nurse who was next door giving out meds. I had left the supplies there on admission and I decided that I would go ahead and clean him up and change his appliance to save her the time and boy am I glad that I did. I got his pants off and got the bed protector and placed it on top of his comforter and had him lay down. Got gloves and a soapy washcloth to clean the urine off of his body. As I began to wash him I discovered that he had a rash between his legs and that he had oohy gooey stuff in the cracks of his legs in his crotch. Now and I am thinking this thing through, it was probably from the urine that had been oozing for two days. I say two days because when I got the clothes home and washed tonight, I discovered that yesterday’s underwear looked like the ones I took off today when I cleaned. The worst part was that his penis was raw on the edge of it and that was probably where the pus looking stains came from and he was in pain when I washed it. I showed all of this Rosemonde (his sweet nurse). I also showed her how to snap the appliance pieces together. I also couldn’t find his support belt when I was there. Found it in a plastic bag in the laundry bag when I got home. It reeked of urine. So WHY didn’t the person who changed him discover why he was wet and see that it got taken care of and clean him up properly. Rosemonde gave me a soothing cream to punt in the raw, red areas of his crotch and he said that it felt a lot better. I will have a talk with the unit mgr. tomorrow. The other thing was that Mom told me that her eye was hurting a lot. Well, I know that this is because she hasn’t gotten her eye drops at night on a regular basis or this would not be happening. Rosemonde put some in then when she was doing meds and said she would put more in later when she went to bed. The nurse came to give Mom her inhaler without the chamber. I said she needs the chamber. She was looking in her meds card and did’n’t have a clue what she was looking for. We found it and I had to show her how to use it. Shouldn’t the staff get trained in the care of a new patient? Shouldn’t each one learn about the unique characteristics of a new pt.?

Mom complained about the crafts activity today. She thought they were doing it a dumb way (making flags.) I spoke with someone one from the activities dept. They saw that she was getting frustrated because they were doing it that way. I explained that she had been a teacher of elementary and that her memory remembered some of that stuff and she thought it was a goofy way to make a flag. She missed the important point that everyone had a job to do this way.

Tomorrow I will adjust and try to figure out what’s going on. Falling asleep now.