I took Miss Kitty to the vet, because I noticed she doesn’t have much of an appetite, and her teeth are bad. I feed her soft cat food now. She needs some teeth pulled and I’m awaiting test results from a blood test.
I got her from the shelter 8 years ago, and they said she was 5 at the time. The vet says she is about 15.
She is so attached to my daughter. She stays in her room all the time. When my daughter is gone, she cries for her.
She is very skittish, shy, and afraid. I wonder if it is her personality or a result to her past life before we adopted her.
This is a picture of Mcdonald’s and their starting wages. $14.50 to $16.50 to start. Please note this isn’t a post about knocking fast-food workers at all. This post is dedicated to the elderly and a problem that I believe we have in regards to how well we care for the elderly.
So across the street from this Mcdonald’s is private pay, upscale assisted living, with 80 assisted living residents, and 40 memory care residents. Their starting wage is $14.75 with maybe a .20 cent raise a year. So I have been working there for 8 years and I make $15.75, I am a good worker, overachiever, all my reviews exceed expectations. It’s not my work performance that’s a problem.
So across the street from this Mcdonald’s are elderly residents of an assisted living facility, the median age is 88, with Parkinson’s, strokes, memory impairment, Alzheimer’s. Many of these residents are dependent on the caregivers to go to the bathroom, get in and out of bed, eat their meals, have a shower. Many of these residents are completely paralyzed due to Parkinson’s or paralyzed on one side due to a stroke. Many have arthritis and have zero mobility. Some forget how to walk due to Alzheimer’s. Many are wanderers and are dependent on us to keep them safe from running out in the street. I can go on and on. How would you feel if you had to depend on someone else for simple tasks that you can easily do? Just putting it into perspective.
These residents pay anywhere from $6,000 up to $17,000 a month, yes a month, to live here, depending on their care level. Not all these cares are even getting met. So why don’t we get paid more is beyond me?
Anyway, I pass medications, order medication, do vital signs. I have my life in their hands. If I were to mess up, it could be life or death.
But the thing is, we are so short-staffed due to the low pay. It makes me sick. I would think that the elderly deserved so much better, especially since they pay so much to live there? What they get in return for their rent check, doesn’t even come close to matching up for what they pay. It’s sickening.
If my parents ever need to go to a home, I’m going to take care of them and hire my caregiver friends to help. I am so grateful to have this experience so that I can take care of my parents, because I have the know-how, and to have an insider view of assisted living facilities. I took care of my Grandma, and I am grateful she didn’t have to experience this.
