10 Things plus 1

I love...............

• Cheese cake........ All flavors except chocolate. I don't like chocolate cake either. Currently eating New York Style cheese cake with strawberries. Yum, yum, yum!!!! 

• Lenie. My adorable Yorkshire terrier/ Lhasa Apso (?) mix of a mutt. 

 Lenie and his piggy

• My baby niece - the Izzynator who turned 8 months yesterday. Daughter from another mother. 

 I absolutely love this picture of her in her play pen. She looks so mischievous. My sister would probably kill me if she knows i put her picture online. She doesn't even have her pictures on facebook, but she's so prettttttyyyyy. She looks exactly like my sister. Carbon copy.

• History and in that vein Historical romance novels. 

• Books. Favorite fantasy as a child was to be locked in a library for a week with food and a bathroom. A family friend said he always looked at me like a snub when we were kids cos i wouldn't play with them, instead i would lay on the sofa and read novels. 

 Favorite book of all time.

• Jack Macfarland of Will and Grace. 

 So much laughter and joy added to my life because of this character.

• The furry throw my mom gave me when i went back to school after christmas. 

Mine is brown. So warm and soft and cuddly.

• The honey moon phase of relationships. 

 I love, love!

• French dressing. It makes my salads just a little bit more enjoyable. Add a little honey mustard dressing to the mix, and you are golden

• Being Nigerian. I'm so Nigerian, it hurts. It doesn't seem like it's been almost 8yrs since i last stepped foot in my beloved dysfunctional country. Saw the Welcome to Lagos video, and i loved it. I loved the Igbo dude. "You take tea cos the weather is cold" or whatever he said. So real! Loves it. 

•  Snoopy. I've had my snoopy since 2005. I bought him and Charlie Brown from Kohls. Charlie Brown is not soft and cuddly, but Snoopy is. Snoopy to me equals comfort. Charlie Brown is currently in storage (at sch state) while Snoopy is right beside me.

That was Snoopy in 2005. Snoopy of 2010 is kinda worn out from giving too much love.

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Who's lying?

Hey Lovies,
My weekend was crazzzzziiiiieeee! I worked 38hrs in 3 days. 8hrs on Friday, 14 hrs on Saturday and 16hrs on Sunday. Yes, i temporarily lost my mind cos i will think long and hard before i accept 2 double shifts back to back again. The main reason i did it was because every time I'm depressed and go to work, i always feel better when i leave. I just did not want to have time to think. So i agreed when they asked if i could work two doubles. Even though my body didn't like it, my mind did cos i have snapped out of my funk. I feel much better right now. Hopefully, i can stay that way. I couldn't freaking get out of bed yesterday. I woke up in pain. My shift ended at 11.30pm, but by 10.00 pm on Sunday, i was done. I went to the day room and put my feet up, they hurt like hell. I was like they could fire me if they want to fire me, i was done.

Anyhoodle, let me gist u guys something that happened at work. I worked in the older adult unit on Sat. For some reason they had a 25yr handicapped guy on that unit. He's really nice, but i don't think he's all there. Meaning, i'm not 100% sure his mental capacity is that of a 25yr old. Anyway, on Friday when i worked on another unit and we were at the cafeteria, other staff had commented that he was dating this 28yr old chic on the unit i was working on that day. Hmmm.... Ok! That night, they had movie night in the patio of the unit i worked on and people from the older adult unit, including the 25yr old came to watch. I saw him sitting with his "chic".

Fast forward to the next day. Like i said i worked in the older adult unit and as i was taking them to the cafeteria for lunch, the 25yr old starts crying and says the 28 yr old unzipped his pants during the movie and was rubbing his privates. He was shaking and crying. I did my best to console him. The pple from the other unit were not there yet, as soon as he saw them coming, he started crying again. He refused to eat his food and i had to keep reassuring him that i wouldn't let her sit next to him. As soon as she came in the cafeteria, he threw his food in the trash and wheeled himself out. I usually let them smoke before taking them back on the unit after lunch, so as the others were smoking, he was still going off, looking very distressed and crying. I asked him if he had been molested before cos his reaction was so strong and he said he had been molested by two boys from school. He's HIV positive btw, and i had been wondering about that. He kept on saying, i already have this disease and i don't need this.

Anyway, we get back on the unit, i had to report to the charge nurse, who reports to the nurse supervisor. They went over to the other unit to investigate, of course the chic denies it. She admitted they sat together during the movie but nothing happened. Come to find out she had left a note for another guy on her unit that she would jerk him off if he wanted. Anyway, the nurse comes back, calls the dude's doctor and reports it. All he said was, u know these patients sometimes make up stuff. After the nurse further explained, he said Ok and that was the end of the conversation. I felt bad!

So the next shift starts (I worked a double that day), and i asked the lady who just came in if she heard what happened to 25yr old dude. She was pissed. Come to find out that the night before she had caught 25yr old and 28yr old chic red-handed and she said it was consensual! The guy was worried that he was going to get in trouble that's y the next day, he changed the story and said she was molesting him. She said she saw them together with a blanket over them and she told 28yr old chic to stop. 25yr old guy didn't look distressed, he still sat with her until the movie ended and while she walked them back to the unit he never mentioned anything like that to her.

Now when he told me his version, he never mentioned that a staff had seen them together and asked her to stop. When i had earlier asked him y he didn't report her, he said he didn't tell anyone because he was scared. There was no mention of the staff seeing them together. Someone that had been crying and shaking, as soon as the staff went up to him and told him to stop lying, there was no trace of tears in his eyes. He just kept on saying, i didn't touch her. No one accused him of touching her. Conclusion to the story was that, he lied cos he was scared he was going to get in trouble if it came out.  Oh boy no cry again, eye clear and everything.

I totally fell for it. Everyone did. He should be an oscar winning actor or something. Never in a million years would i have thot he was lying. U should have seen me in the cafeteria, there were tears in my eyes cos i felt so bad for him.

Moral of the story:

1. I can never be a Judge. It's always hard for me to tell who's lying and who's not. 
2. Always hear both sides of a story
3. Having an independent witness is even better. 
4. You see how that chic was fondling someone that was HIV+ without having a clue about his status? I know if she had the chance, she would totally have slept with him. Yes, patients have sex with each other all the time, that's one of the reasons we have to constantly watch them.  Since they are not allowed to have condoms, u know it's not protected sex!
5. Na wa for pple sha!

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(My Love & Pride) The Africa They Never Show You.

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He blew me a kiss and made me smile

 

image found here

I don't talk about work not because there's nothing to talk about but because i'm not as invested in it as i should be. One of the things i've had to do at this hospital that i never did at my former hospital was deal with bodily fluids. When i first started, i protested loudly to anyone who would listen (at home. I don't complain at work). My first time was cleaning poop off the floor cos this lady had the runs and couldn't hold it until she got to her room. Housekeeping had gone home for the day, come to find out later that even if they were around, an MHA (mental health associate) would have had to clean it. We clean, they sanitize (hmmm...).

The next time i went to work, i worked on the emergency stabilization unit. This is where the extreme cases are put. I don't like working there cos you don't get a moments peace. Just too much is going on for my comfort. Anyway, during report they talked about this 75yr old man who needed to be cleaned and fed. I'm wondering to myself why he is not in the older adult unit. Anyway, we get to his room, which smelt of pee for days. The housekeeper informed me that I'm supposed to be the one cleaning the urine not her, that they only sanitize. Okay! She decides to be nice and clean like a weeks worth of pee off the bathroom floor. Time to give this dude a bath, and i almost puked. His diaper had at least 3 days worth of shit in it. The stench of fermenting pee was overwhelming. He couldn't get up. He kept rubbing his whole head in this weird way. He wasn't speaking and i wasn't sure if he was understanding what was being said. We finally got him to the bathroom and he sat on the commode. The other MHA left me with him to go get something.

I asked him to take off the diaper and put it in the waste basket and he did that. So i knew he at least understood. He had absolutely no energy. Only God knows how many days he had lain in that bed in that filth without food. He couldn't raise his leg to step into the bathroom, so they decided to move him to a handicapped bathroom. They got him there after much struggle, by this time we had a male MHA helping us. The shower in that room refused to bring out hot water, so the dude was freezing. That idea was aborted, we had to transfer him to a third bathroom. I felt so bad for him. He finally got a bath, some clean clothes and socks. Time for dinner, someone we had been told in report that we would have to force him to eat, ate by himself without any prompting. He ate like he was starving and he probably was. No one had gotten that man out of bed in at least 2 days. They just let him lay there in pee and poo. I just kept thinking that whole time that he was someone's dad or granddad. After he finished, i asked him if he wanted to watch TV. He still wasn't speaking, so i wheeled him in front of the TV. I kept going back to talk to him and see if he was okay.

Things got so busy, we never got around to changing his bedding. When i went to check on him during quiet time, i saw that he had laid back down on his stinking bed and was still shaking. I asked him to get up and sit in his wheel chair and i changed his sheets. The whole time, the dude had not spoken a word to me, but i could tell he understood me, and he was still making the weird rubbing motion of his head. Shift ended and i went home. I only work weekends and have not been put on the unit since. Last week when i worked, patients on his unit were allowed to have group in the patio of the unit i was working on. They are on total lockdown so they are usually on their unit. I saw him walk past, very energetic and i was surprised cos the last time i saw him like 2 weeks ago he could barely stand up. By the time group was over and they were going back to their unit, i was at the nurses station which was at least 5 feet away and i happened to be looking that way as he walked by. He stopped and looked at me for a second. Imagine my surprise when he blew me a kiss and walked away. He recognized me!! That totally made my day. I was grinning from ear to ear.

He reminded me of the grandfather i never had. Interesting how both of them have been at a mental hospital.

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