I just need to let off a little steam here today. I am currently in a CNA class and today we were discussing diseases. My instructor made a comment that if she were able to choose what disease that she would die from that it would be Alzheimer's. She went on to describe AD like it was a happy trip through lala land.

Well, as you can imagine, I just about jumped out of my seat. I didn't keep quiet either. I pretty much let her and everyone else know that she didn't know what she was talking about. She happens to be a nurse who has worked in many nursing homes. How could anyone possibly choose this disease?!? Guess I didn't make any points with her today.

Oh no - HOW can she say that? AD is the most ghastly disease I can think of. My whole life I have always thought that a disease where you actually lose "yourself" is like a living nightmare. I just don't understand how someone can think that.

Lori,

As I was reading your post, I not only pictured "you" jumping out of your seat, but me and all our forum friends literaly attacking that so called nurse. Oh my God, how the hell could she say something like that. Copy a few of our posts and give them to her, and see if she still feels that that's what she'd like to die from. Or better yet, tell her I'll pay for her plane ticket to come and stay here for a few weeks with Mom, and then see what she'd like to die from.

Jackie

Lori,

THAT kind of ignorance from a "professional" is totally unacceptable and downright stupid. I truly believe many people think of AD as "merely forgetting memories." Dumb sh_ts don't know forgetting includes walking, sitting, swallowing, etc., etc., etc. I would challenge this instructor, and I use that term quite loosely, to spend a day with someone who has AD. Perhaps then, if she knows to open her mind, she will learn enough to genuinely be considered a teacher, not someone simply spouting ignorance from her podium.

Lori, I, too, get angry when I hear of such stupidity. I would not wish AD upon anyone, friend or foe, let alone choose it for myself. I think I would have to report her to the department head or supervisor. There is no excuse for a medical professional/educator to be the poster child for the old saying: "Ignorance is bliss!" And we wonder why our educational systems are such failures. Too bad we don't all live close enough to you, as in down the block, so we could "meet and march" tomorrow!

Glad you vented. Hoped it helped. Now I'm all worked up. Thanks, my friend...

Joyce

She obviously doesn't know what she is talking about. Like my dad used to say when people would talk garbage like that, he would say they just like to hear themselves speak. Apparently all those years working in nursing homes didn't faze her one bit. What a foolish thing to say.

Lori,

I am so sorry that you had to hear that, and I too can just picture you jumping out of that chair. She obviously hasn't worked with anyone that truly had AD or is just oblivious to the real world. The suggestion of taking her some of our posts is a good idea and I would consider taking the ones from Joyce about Bill, as well as others that you deem appropriate. She really needs to be taught about this disease.

I've got a post to take to her Lori.

Bill woke up at 6 this morning, maybe he was anxious to get to respite. But it was probably because he had an EXTRA LARGE BM. He had removed his diaper. There was poop from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Of course there was the large pile under him. Poop on the sheets, blankets, gown, and on the pillow. His hands were both covered. Under the nails and up to the wrist.
How do you start to clean that up? I grabbed blue pads and covered the bed with them so I could have a clean starting point. Hands first because his nose itched and he had to scratch it along with the back of his head.
It took me 45 minutes to get him and the bed clean.

I sure wish I could have gotten him into the shower. But then again, how was I going to get him up with the hoyer lift to move him there?

Maybe this instructor, she's not a teacher because no teacher would have made such a stupid remark, thinks she would like to have to lay in her own waste, have someone else change her diaper and give her a bath. Then she could have them dress her and puree all her food so they could spoon feed her. Of course she would have to eat whatever they decided to feed her because she wouldn't be able to tell them she didn't like what they had. Of course the people who were wiping her bottom and cleaning her private parts would all be strangers to her.

It was a stupid, stupid remark and I wish I had been there to jump up with you.
If we were all close, we could all bring our LO's to her classroom for a sit-in. We could all go for coffee while they were there. Let her see if this really is the disease she would choose.
She's probably change he choice to something a little more humane. Maybe slow torture.

I am sooo sorry Lori. I think I would have to drop her class. I commend you for not leaving with any of 'her' skin, under 'your' fingernails. I would have gone balastic!

I love the idea of dropping a dozen AD patients off, for her to baby-sit, but probably should just talk to her supervisor, and hopefully find a different teacher, that you can complete that one cousre with.

Well I can't drop the course or I won't be a CNA so I will just get through. She is the only teacher. The problem with her being a nurse is that if she encountered what Joyce described, she would just call a CNA to clean it up.

*Charming* Well Hang-In, we do now how to do that!

Obviously, the only way she's seen an ALZ patient is only for a few moments while she's passing through the halls to do some 'important' nurse work.

I say let her have the CNA job for one week with an ALZ patient who can still roam and, like Bill, forgets to go poop in the bathroom and has a fully loaded diaper and fights anyone who tries to guide him/her to a bed or bathroom to clean them up!