Progress to Come?

A lot can change in a week, and this one made progress toward getting more help. I won't have every open shift filled, but anything helps.

One of the schools I contacted had a student reply that she was interested in helping me. I looked at her resume and gave a few of my quad life videos that show some of what I do. I liked what I saw and watching my cares online didn't scare her off, I interviewed the student last week. Now, she is scheduled to come in a few days to start training.

It has been over two years since I last trained anyone, and that was a different situation. The new caregiver was a home care nurse already and had several year's experience. He was also trained by my other night nurse who has worked with me for nearly two decades. Sara is the one who usually trains day and evening caregivers, but she is still out on leave.

Any nurse with experience will say home care is much different than working in a facility. For example, I reuse equipment that hospitals normally use once and throw away. One common item are med cups. I'm the only one using them and I take the same medications almost every time. Therefore, I use a cup, it goes through my cleaning solution, and then back on the shelf for another round.

When teaching how I do everything, I'll need to remember to emphasize school will say to do some things completely opposite of what I do. However, this will hopefully be an excellent learning opportunity to gain experience and work with different technology. To my knowledge, their are only a handful of people in Iowa that use a diaphragm pacemaker. I'm excited to have the opportunity to teach and get more help, but also pray I don't lead her astray somehow.

Due to class schedules, the future nurse can only do one full day and one afternoon a week and only until school finishes in May. That will be another 15 hours per week covered out of the 30 that's missing and will be a big help in the quad life. I'm thankful for God's blessings and pray everything goes well with showing my care routine. I also pray her paperwork with the state will also be complete before summer break. I will see what comes for the next few months and give thanks for what I have.