12 Hour Shifts and Grandma

It has been a very busy week.  I worked four 12-hour day shifts in a row.

12-hour Shifts

It's actually not that bad to work 12 hour shifts when things are busy.  Time flies by.  When I have a bit of a breather in my work, I go and help the other nurses with their patients.

The only problem with 12 hour shifts is that the days fly by as well.  By the time you go home, it's almost time to go to sleep.  I can shower, eat a little snack, play with Poggles for a bit, and then it's time to get ready for bed.  Otherwise I won't have enough sleep for the next day.

On some of the days I was working, I was so exhausted that I actually took naps during my lunch and dinner break.  I just meant to close my eyes for a bit, but I dozed right off.  When my co-workers got up to get back to work, the sounds would wake me and I'd get up and go back to work too.

Grandma's Fall
After the four days, I got home completely exhausted.  Unfortunately, I found out that my 93 year old grandmother had fallen and hit the floor face first.  She was in the hospital with a bloody nose, a black eye, and a fractured jaw.  I was horrified.

When I went to visit her, her face was so bruised and swollen that she could barely open her left eye.  I felt so sad.  I sat with her and helped her with whatever I could.

The nurse was very sweet and did her best.  My grandmother doesn't speak English, so she I translated questions for her.  We had to give my grandmother some extra medicine for pain because the scheduled medications weren't enough for pain control, and we found out that she was having some trouble eating her food.  The lovely nurse had the kitchen puree all of my grandmother's food for her and my grandmother loved it.

Chatting With Grandma
When my parents went for a walk, I sat on my grandmother's bedside and we talked about things that she likes to do.  She told me that she likes to play Bingo on Wednesdays with the other residents at her care home.  It costs 10 cents per card and she told me how she once played 11 games in a row and it cost her $1.10.  We had a good chuckle over it because $1.10 is not a lot of money, but she had made it sound like it was a very big deal.

On Mondays, they play for free and there are prizes to be won.  She says that you can win candy or crackers/biscuits.  When she won once, she got some lovely biscuits for herself.  She seemed pretty proud of that.

On Fridays, they go on outings to different places.  Her favourite place to go is T&T Supermarket.  She says that she can walk around and buy whatever she wants.  I guess she likes candy and biscuits a lot since that's what she says you can buy there.  I like how she makes it seem like such a great place to go because you can buy whatever you want.  She really emphasized how buying anything you want is such a great thing.

I thought it was very sweet to visit my grandmother.  She has been through a lot lately.  Her heart is not very good anymore and she caught Shingles recently too.  I hope she gets better soon.