A little appreciation, a little frustation and a little humor!

First - a little appreciation:

The staff at my facility have had so much appreciation shown to us recently.  I thought I would show you a few nice things that have been done.

 These are shots of our online chart system.  They've added little phrases that are different each time you click in - from We Appreciate you, to Thanks for rising to the challenge...

Kids and adults have been making cards for our residents and for us.  The big one with the grapes is a full sheet of poster board that was brought by one of our families, and with it they brought a smoothie for each staff member.

A local church collected money and gave each staff member a gift certificate to a local restaurant, along with a note that said they were praying for us.

An Italian restaurant about 20 minutes from us brought big pans of lasagna, salad and garlic bread for us.  This was actually featured on our local Fox news as a positive news story, in the middle of all the sad Covid 19 news.

That brings me to the frustration:

We were also on another news station, this one not so nice.  Our state is doing extra inspections of nursing homes because of Covid  Other states have stopped inspections, because if even the doctors shouldn't be coming into the facilities, it doesn't seem like inspectors should be going from place to place, but they are in Michigan.  They have been going in and doing a special inspection on Infection Control.  Since I'm the Infection Control Nurse, it's stressful for me.  We passed the whole Infection Control program, but got a citation because we are wearing fabric masks and people were adjusting them.  I do agree that the masks should fit tightly and not need adjusting, but at the time they came they were not even required and we had just been told to start wearing them.  Everyone was trying to get used to wearing them and how to adjust them so they stay where they are supposed to.  We already had education in process to train on this, along with all the other new education we've been doing because of Covid.

I know the inspections are needed but I feel that instead of always picking at things, they should give ideas on how things could be done better, and focus on serious infractions.

Anyway - apparently our Governor gave out this information to the media, so a local news station did a story on area nursing homes listed.  Our Administrator gave a statement but they didn't use it, and it always ends up sounding worse than it actually is.  They focused on some other places that had bigger issues, so that saved us a bit but we were still mentioned.

I just wish that once someone would do a story on the  staff that love the residents, the aides that don't have much money themselves, but buy things for the residents because no one else does, the kitchen staff that make special treats for people because they know it will bring a smile, the housekeeping staff who sing with and hug the residents, the nurses who come back on their time off to check on someone or spend their break sitting with someone who is lonely instead of going off the floor and relaxing.  I have seen all this and more.  If you have never worked in this type of setting you will never understand the bond that is built, but it's hard to see that side of things, but then so frequently see negative things posted in the media, especially now with all the extra that is being done to keep those residents safe and happy.

Enough of that! I need to just focus on the appreciation I talked about earlier.  It tells me that although the media often focuses on the negative (in many things), people do see good things.

On to the humor!

If you are on facebook with me, you may have seen this, but I thought it was cute!

I looked into the back yard the other day and saw this ball.  It had been quite windy and blew over.  I just thought it was funny that it ended up with the face looking right at our windows.  

I said something about reporting it for breaking quarantine, but people said I should let it run free - since none of us can!