In 1985 I realized a dream. I finall, at the age of 41
was able to attend and graduate from school as a licensed
Practical nurse. I chose to become an LPN over that on an RN
because of my age, and the generalized field into which I was
entering...Geriatrics.
   My dream was short lived however, as I was injured only a
few months into my "career". After two years I was at last
able to return to work, but not as an LPN. 
   I did however return to my earlier field od being a
certified nurses aide, companion, where the physical duties
were not as demanding.
   I love and respect all areas of the medical field, from
the first aide responder,emt, paramedics, Rn's, LPN, CNA's, 
through the fields of specialized medical doctors, and may
God bless everyone of you.
 As I read the CNA’s Prayer it made my eyes tear  as 
I thought back over the years
 to all of the wonderful unique people for whom
 I have cared, loved and buried.
 Ours is not a profession that receives glory it is
 one of true dedication.

   My lifelong quote when people ask me how I can 
tend to the dirty bedpans and 
dying old has been
"Because someday I too shall be old and sick and I 
pray that there shall be a ME there then"


   It ALWAYS shuts them up.

   Now I think that it is time for me to make a 
page in tribute to some of those dear 

people that molded me into who I am 
and left me with these memories to remember.

( please see "THE ANNALS OF A NURSES AIDE")

 I thank them one and all, whom in their need made me a better
 person. Dixie




THE CNA'S PRAYER

As I enter into my place of calling

I ask for strength as I help those in needing

Hide my tears for the sick and aging 

And let my smile be the hope they're seeking.

Guide my hands as they do for them

The things they cannot do, and we take for granted

Allow my eyes to see those things

that make my stay with them a blessing

Provide the words I need to speak

To let them know I love them so.

As I do my work throughout the day

It is for my residents that I stay,

And for my residents that I pray 

written by SAllen
This poem is about to recognized as the

OFFICIAL POEM  of the CNA 



CERTIFIED
 NURSE'S PAGE (MY ON LINE SIS'S)







This is the new offical symbol

of the CERIFIED NURSES OF AMERICA

We have much to be proud of with the

acceptance of CNA'S having their own
poem and flower.


My thanks go out to my online sis for 

all of her diligent work and efforts to

see this come about ((((HUGS)))) sis.


MAY I WALK SOFTLY



May I walk softly,

Through the darkened hall,

Ears alerted for someones call.
And the power too,

To accompolish all

That I have to do.


There are fifteen patients

In my care

May I manage,

To provide their care.

Lifting spirts,

Giving aid,
For the little I am paid?

Touch their hearts,

As they touch mine,

Reach their spirit,

Reach their soul,
As I wish I could make them whole?
 

God walk with me on this night

Through these halls 

In palest light.

Pass your hand across each one,

When our long, long day is done.

by ME (BGD)









    I have to tell you something here. I have walked on
 both sides of this situation. I was a nurses aide off and on 
 from 1964 until 1984, when I finally realized my dream of
 attending nursing school. Ok so it WAS LPN school, but let me 
tell you I cried ALL day the day I received my cap!!! Three 
weeks later I resigned from school, three months shy of 
graduation because I could not handle the coldness and the lack
 of heart I saw and was being forced to assume as a NURSE. I
 returned again to being a NA/HHA/companion and worked until I 
was forced to retire with several injuries. I much prefer being 
a NA to being a "so called real nurse!!!"
     I am not ashamed that I was almost a nurse but I am proud
 that I left the feild, the money and the coldness to walk
 proudly as a NA/HHA


   In the earlier days I worked in the city hospital. I served
 on the cancer
floor for a while and everyone there either died or was sent 
home to die.

There was no hospice then. There was also not enough staff
to spend time with these people that were suffering the agony
 of the damned.

I was a new aide in those days and I was very naive.

My first week I was walking through the dark halls and
heard a woman screaming. I stepped into her room and
she was crying. After spending a few minutes with her I went to
the nurses station and asked what the porblem was with "Mrs T" 
and waas told "She has terminal cancer and will die within a 
day or two. She is here because she has no family and no
place to be sent. She does not know she is dying." 

   Well I went home thinking about her and about her situation.
All that night I laid awake wondering about her. The following day
I stopped in to see her again and she was awake and said to me
"why can't they be honest with an old lady that is dying? Instead
they hide me here and ignore me like I am already dead. I will be
gone soon enough.

   To this day I remember those words and I think that people should
be told something that important! Granted some cannot handle it well, 
but it IS there lives and their death and they should have some clue
as to what is happening.

  Two days later she was gone. May her soul rest in peace. 

From there I went to the Ob'gyn service looking for the beauty of
new life to surround me. It was NOT to be.
   In those days the halls were straight with rooms on both
sides of the hall, no way to remove the dead but down the 
hall, past the other rooms
.
 They would merely close all of the other doors when 
someone was taken away and ALL of the other patients knew that 
when the doors closed, someone had died. Cold scene it was too.

   I saw several women taken out of the wards this way. 
I also saw several new babies taken off the floor.

This was done by placing the infant in a flower box
 (they are so common
on Maternity, who would imagine, right?

   Then the baby was taken out with no one the wiser but the staff.

It was my misfortune to be on duty the night that Becky Tyler was
born. 

I was in delivery and saw them trying for ten minutes to make
her breathe, knowing that brain death occurs after six minutes tops. 

I was also in neo-natal the following day when everyone went to dinner, leaving me, 
a floater alone in the nursery with 15 babies.

   Becky had been have a problem all day and I checked her
every couple minutes. At six I saw she had gone cyanotic and began
pagiing for a doctor and the RN's at dinner

Two RN's showed after about ten minutes and I told them that
 "I thought the Tyler
baby was having trouble breathing" ( aides did not have the athority to use the
word "dead". 

   When her parents came to see her at 7:00pm I told them I was not qualified to
move the incubator and would have to come back later.

 Oh, how my heart cried for them, with five sons at home, now losing their
only daughter!

At ten PM their doctor finally showed up and pronounced her offically dead
and went to tell the parents. Mrs Tyler went home empty handed
 the next day.

   Three years later I too laid a daughter to rest, four graves away from little
Becie Tyler. and once again I cried for this baby I had held for a day, and for
my own little girl, whom I had not

To this day I cannot bear to see flower boxes and turn away from them
in panic


  No life as a Nurses Aide is not always fun, there is no glamor, no credit and rarely any "thanks", 
but the awards I have received have out weighed the bad times and the sad time by far.












This

"LPN" means LOVE

WEB RING

site is owned by 

DIXIE 


Want to join

THE "LPN"
means LOVE WEB?








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