Inclusion

A few months ago, mum and I went for a drive to visit my sister and do lunch. My sister in recent years has started being a Carer in her part of Victoria. It’s a completely different clientele in her area. I imagine she was led to believe she would have plenty of work under the NDIS.

1. The NDIS is for under 65-year-old age bracket.

Her clients are largely over that age bracket and self-funded retirees.

Anyway, in an effort to ask her about her new job and bond, mum asked her about any interesting stories.

Her story goes like this;

She received a call to see if she would take an elderly man grocery shopping. She wasn’t prepared to take him out in her own car as the previous time he had continence issues and the work vehicle. She asked if he still had this issue.

She didn’t hear back about this shift for the client. I can’t imagine it would have been easy to problem solve this issue. To broach the subject with the client or their family member in a way that returned to the gentleman a level of comfort and dignity for better health.

I think, I embellish to make her story more interesting.

Now mum has never asked me for interesting stories, but I volunteered one all the same.

One of my Carers arrived one day and I think it’s rather telling of my rapport with my Carers that she announced her arrival with a question.

“Do I smell like……?”

Clearly the word that is missing is the punchline to this story, so you will have to keep reading….

This Carer went to an elderly lady with some dementia, she works with many clients with dementia and she is very loving and caring and respectful in the way she does her work.

While with this particular lady she went about cleaning around her while she did the woman’s personal care (or her shower).

She noticed a small mat on the floor in front of her armchair, that she sits in. It was covered in crumbs, so she picked it up and took it outside to give it a shake.

It was one of those mats with a rubber backing. As she shook it, a wave of urine came back up at her and splashed all over her.

We guessed the word there?

Do I smell like urine?

That’s correct.

The moral of the story is; A good carer will always carry a change of clothes in their car and no, she didn’t smell of pee…