Light Duty

Well it's 4:08 am and I can't sleep, I just woke up at 3 and I couldn't get back to sleep. So what do you do in the middle of the night when you can't sleep? You BLOG!! Never mind that my alarm is going off in aboot an hour...

Today I was placed on light duty at work. What is light duty for a PT? No clue. Paperwork apparantly. How did I end up on light duty you ask? OK, well since I'm up anyway and BLOGging, I'll tell you.

Remember that patient who gave me aggrivation and bled all over me? WELL, this woman is SOMETHING ELSE! She can walk pretty easily, she just doesn't want to. And staying in bed is bad for her burns. REALLY Bad. So of sourse the Big Bad Physical Therapist came to get her OOB today. She wasn't having it. "Can't you just leave me alone" "You have no sympathy/regard for sick people" (she said that one twice) "You're the devil's child!" "You're a nightmare come alive" etc etc etc.

All I wanted her to do was get OOB and walk like 3 steps to her chair. OOOOOOOOHHHHH the big bad PT!!!! The MD came in to help me encourage/convince/force her OOB. "Can you get rid of her, get her out of my room!" The MD was on my side, and told her she needed to get OOB. The nurse came in and she tried the same thing. The nurse told her you HAVE to get OOB! And so it went. An hour and a half later, me and 2 nurses managed to prevent her from falling and get her to the chair. This woman is SO UNSAFE, SO UNCOOPERATIVE, SO LAZY, SO RESISTANT, it's just plain dangerous. And the sad part is, that she can do it. I've seen her walk. She just plain doesn't want to. It's absolutely amazing what the human mind can do. The only way I could motivate her was to tell her that the sooner she got into the chair, the sooner I would leave her alone. I told her I had all day to get her OOB and I wasn't leaving until whe was there. Her response, was "I wish you would just leave now, you're horrible!" I told her I wasn't there to be liked I was there to get her OOB. She wasn't too happy.

So imagine the scenario. She had pooped A LOT in bed, didn't tell anyone and was sitting on it. She's semi-oozing from some of her burns that haven't totally healed yet. She's semi-standing, the walker is 2 feet in front of her, her ELBOWS are on the walker, and her hips are bent to about 90 degrees. She WON'T STAND UP. She WON'T LISTEN to me or the nurse helping me hold her up and prevent her from ending up on the floor because she's about to fall from the position she's in. (Did I mention this patient is obese?) She's not listening to the nurse cleaning her behind trying to clean her and help us hold her up. It was just a NIGHTMARE. Finally she's clean and we're trying to get her to take the 3 steps and pivot to her chair, all the while trying to get her to STAND UP, and trying to prevent her from ending up on the floor, because if she ended up on the floor we wouldn't have been able to pick her up again. She starts to semi-waddle to the chair, complaining and being rude the whole too long a time it took her to take the 3 steps. Finally she decides, "I can't stand anymore, I need to sit now" And she sits down. Never mind that she's next to but not pivoted towards the chair. I had to PUSH her into a pivot so that she landed on the edge of the chair and not the floor. And then she had the nerve to tell me I made her fall, it was my fault that she hurt from sitting down the way she did. Like I said, this woman is SOMETHING ELSE. So I got her back in the chair far enough that she wouldn't fall off, and left the room fuming. And as soon as I left the room she called her husband to tell him what a horrible person I am that I actually made her get OOB and sit in a chair. This woman was SHOCKED and angry when she was told that she had to go to a nursing home. She can't go home if she can't walk, so she needs STR in and ECF. AAAAAAANYWAY, so I left the room pretty angry.

AAAAAAAND with a backache. This is the third time she did this to me, was unsafe, almost fell, and hurt my back. Only this time my supervisor happened to be on the floor treating another patient and he made me go to Employee Health. OY! That's the only wor d for it OY! My back wasn't so bad, just a little sore, and not really hurting. But he made me go so I went. And the MD there saw me. And she put me on a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflamatory, and light duty. I can't lift or push or pull. Until Tuesday. I was just so exasperated by then, this whole process was not what I needed I felt fine, just a little sore, and it REALLY WASN'T a big deal. I told the MD, That meand I can't work until Tuesday. I was told the hospital has a "light duty program" I'M A PT!! ALL I DO ALL DAY IS LIFT AND PUSH AND PULL!! There ISN"T ANYTHING else to do as a PT in a hospital. The woman was in shock that I couldn't do anything. PLUS that fact they were going way overboard to cover their behinds because its an on the job injury, ie workmans comp which I understand, but again, I really didn't nee dto verboard, the muscle relaxer, the light duty... We're short staffed enough as it is... FINALLY I convinced her, that if I'm feeling better tomorrow, then I could come back and she would take me off of light duty. Guess where I'm going first thing in the morning...

So I spent the rest of my day doing paperwork, computer stuff, logging in all the proof on how short staffed we are so we can present it ot the big peoples in the hospital so MAYBE we could hire. Which is important and needs to be done, but not how I wanted to be spending my afternoon. I think my back was more aggrivated from sitting at a computer all day then it would have been if I had gone back to work. There's a REASON I didn't make a career of a desk job... I was going stir crazy all afternoon. Never mind that when I came home I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned for Passover; lifting and carrying and pushing and pulling and my back feels fine...

It's not even my back actually One of the other therapists took a look, I pulled a couple of my posterior scapular stabilizers, ie my rhomboids, and lower traps. So I'm taking Advil, I didn't fill the prescriptions she gave me, I feel fine, and that was my day. OY!! That's all I really want to say now. OY!!!

And on that note, it's 4:42 AM and I'll see if I can get some sleep before my alarm goes off at 5:15. Bye Bye.