almost lost patience for the very first time last night at work dealing with a woman whose memory is reset every 15 minutes by Alzheimer's. she is a total sweetheart and gentle soul and like most devote catholics toward the end of their lives, operates in perpetual fear of missing a single morning of church. i should probably add that the "chapel" she attends is built into a floor of the very same building she sleeps in, complete with artificial stained glass and that i wake her up everyday at the exact same time, which she has utterly no concept of. and it all sounds quirky and innocent enough until you sit down and do the math; i am in charge of 2 floors worth of demented old folks with various levels of needs every night. this ranges from repositioning bodies on an hourly rotation to prevent pressure ulcers, emptying catheters and colostomy bags, bathroom assistance, getting the fallen back up off the floor, taking vitals, getting nagged constantly in tears for painpills, comforting nightmares/sundowning hallucinations and checking rooms for pulses/ breathing every 3 hours to make sure no one has died while sleeping (which happens. it is, afterall called graveyard shift for a reason). i am alone with the exception of 1 charge nurse and another cna with the same set of responsibilites on separate sets of floors. some nights i am on my feet all night juggling call lights, and all the while at the same time, have this one severely confused woman consistently calling over and over again in a panic every 15-30 minutes, convinced she is missing mass and that i need to get her dressed right away before divine punishment. and we have the exact same conversation, verbatum, everytime. and everytime, she thanks me for my patience in a tone of genuine sincerity before calling back again in the same panic, the entire previous encounter forgotten and script wiped blank, mere minutes later. the real kicker is i still have to answer her EVERYTIME, never knowing for sure if she has rolled off the bed and dislocated a shoulder, wandered into the lobby leaking behind a goldilocks trail of piss from her bedroom or just simply wondered what this mysterious flashing amulet around her neck does when she presses the button in the dark. and, admittedly, this puts a fair amount of strain getting all the other things expected of me done, some nights more than others. this last shift was no exception. i'd been up 24 hours attempting to get a recording done the day beforehand, so my patience was especially shot. as sleep deprivation studies always reveal ,there is a certain level of exhaustion where everything flatlines onto one extremity of upset and you can no longer distinguish what is and isn't a big deal. that said, i said nothing. i entered the room. i turned off the pendant before "what time is church?" could even be fully pronounced. i walked back out. through a slammed door, a tiny voice whimpered back thanks for my patience. later i clocked out and drank 7-11's first malt liqour sale of the morning on the walk home, crying, feeling like the biggest monster in the world, knowing that i have been around crazy people my whole goddamn life and should fucking know better. and then, strangely enough, i mentally reviewed my job history, thought about all the restaurant customers i've flipped out on and swore at, the car windows i've unlock smashed as a messenger, the labrat hopital cabinfever fits, the legal secretaries i've cussed out, the housepainting/shipping warehouse/contractor work i quit in a tantrum mere months into the employment. and then i realized this next month marks my offical first year of caregiving, and this is a pretty good record for me. yay.