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by Julie Danis
Special work assignments usually offer special experiences. Like the time I cooked and test marketed new hamburger sandwiches – mushroom Swiss and pizza barbecue - as part of a promotion for a fast food chain, or when I ran catering triage behind the scenes of a professional golf tournament. These out-of-the-office jobs opened my eyes to real assembly-line production and the unglamorous side of glamorous events. One recent special assignment was no less special: unlike previous experiences, however, this assignment wasn’t part of my career development or advancement. This assignment was part of life development. My stroke-impaired Mother had fallen, and broken her kneecap. I flew from my home in Chicago to her home in Dayton to see her immediately after her surgery. Mom lived on the special needs floor of an assisted living facility with twenty-five or more active, agitated and addled residents, all needing assistance, seemingly all at the same time. I believed that Mom would require more assistance than her fair share and in order to assess her needs my younger brother and I filled in as her personal health aides for a day.
9:00 a.m. I got here at seven thirty, and I’m now promising to never complain about my real job again. Ever try to move someone in a leg cast from bed to chair? Comfortably? I soon had a long way to go in gaining my mother’s confidence after I fell on top of her during that transfer. The logistics of dressing someone who’s wheelchair-bound proved difficult too. Why didn’t I think of changing her from pajamas to pants when she was still in bed? Continue reading at Women's Voices For Change.
