Day 256 - Working with Our Home Health Staffing Agency

Sunday, September 12th, 2021

We had 2 nurse meet and greets scheduled for today and 9am and 12pm.

Our 9am was late because she couldn't find the house. The staffing agency's scheduler called to let me know that Mom needed to call her because she was lost. The number that was given was International so Verizon immediately blocked the call. At this point, Mom installed WhatsApp to make the outgoing call. Finally she found our house and we had a good "interview". However she said that she didn't think she could start because the staffing agency's coordinator told her one thing and the clinical nurse told her another. It just sounded like a lot of miscommunication already. If she does work out it will only be for Mondays during the day.

Our 12pm was a No Show. 🤦🏻‍♀️ This nurse was supposed to cover nights 3 days a week.

So Mom called her contacts at this agency to let them know of the No Show and get some answers. After being discharged the patient is required to be visited by the Clinical Assessment RN who everyone reports to. We hadn't heard from her and didn't know when she was going to show up. Between texting and phone calls, someone from the agency tracked her down. She ended up showing up in the late afternoon around 4pm today. Her job is to update "the book" (massive binder) which holds his records and all of their paperwork to do paper charting. James' medication had changed which was the most important thing to update. She also brought a surprise. She found our nurse who No Showed the 12pm meet and greet. The story is that she overslept because she works nights. Supposedly she works nights and goes to school during the day. Mom doesn't see how this is possible to stay awake all the time. Dad pointed out that Mom has been doing this for 8 months. This nurse will works nights and start tomorrow. 

The staffing scheduler is on-call throughout the night and said she was trying to get a hold of the nurse we met at 9am today to confirm her for the morning shift tomorrow. We were told to expect a call in the middle of the night confirming. We never got a call so we assumed the Day Shift nurse would not show up in the morning.

James not only has been sucking his fingers but now sucks his thumb. Photo below. It's his way of self soothing. Oh man, this would have been nice when he was 3 months old (negative -2 weeks adjusted) when he was having BPD episodes daily. 

Mom's air mattress has a hole so that was fun having to repump in the middle of the night along with everything else. Right now we are doing evening trach care on a massage table. Then we are having to fold that up, put that away, and blow up the air mattress on a nightly basis. In the morning, we are deflating the air mattress to make room because there just isn't a ton of space in the townhouse we're renting. On a side note our neighbor is probably like what the hell is going on in the middle of the night next door. 🤬 🔊 Between the constant 6 loud beeps from LTV ventilator alarm, the suction machine that sounds like we are starting a lawn mower, and the high pitch beeping from the feed pump, we wouldn't be surprised if we hear from our landlord.

P.S. If you read the blog and are supporting James through his journey we would love you to participate in our video montage of everyone singing his lullaby. Please see the James Weston lullaby post for more details. ❤️

P.P.S. Thank you so much for the lullaby submissions so far! It's so exciting to have all of you be a part of something so special! 😭