How Good is Your Sniffer??

It wasn't too long ago that I realized that I don't talk about the specifics of work at home, or to anyone, very often at all. I do a reasonable amount of general complaining and provide broad concepts but specifics are typically not bothered with... Until I got off of the phone one evening laughing at yet another incident centered around poop (I am the program director for a Home Health and Hospice company). Michael asked what had happened, I told him how one of the aides had forgotten to take the poop out of a towel before putting it in a patient's washing machine, and he thought it was hysterical... so I told him another one - more laughter. The more I thought about it the more I realized how funny my job really is.

Just this morning I had a nurse call to let me know that the aide that morning had not showered her patient while she was there and he didn't smell very pleasant. Knowing that this aide is very thorough but also VERY dramatic, I apologized to the nurse and called the aide to ask what had happened. The conversation went like this:

me "Hello Aide, did you see Patient this morning?"
Aide "Yes I did - at 7am"
Me "Did he get a shower while you were there?"
Aide "No he refused, why?"
Me "His nurse just called to let me know that he doesn't look or smell particularly clean and I wanted to know a little more about the situation."
Aide "Oh my gosh! Nurse is blowing things WAY out of proportion!! He smelled just fine! I will be in shortly to explain what happened."
Me "If you need to come in to turn in paperwork that is fine but don't worry about Patient. I will let his nurse know what happened."
Aide "Ya - she is blowing things WAY out of proportion, I'll be right in."

When she got here, Aide insisted upon demonstrating on me just HOW CLOSE she had been to Patient by pressing herself right up against me, smoothing my hair and sniffing my neck. She told me that her sense of smell was the strongest sense that she had and that she would have KNOWN if the patient had smelled bad... I decided not to mention the fact that the nurse told me his socks were saturated in urine, didn't want to insult the sniffer. Aide started to cry when I told her it was not a big deal, because she doesn't want me to think she does a bad job. Having been through 209 tearful encounters with this aide, I concluded the conversation as quickly as humanly possible as I watched my personal bubble shrivel to lifelessness on the ground and encouraged her to get to her next patient.

Note to friends: I don't care if we are BFF's, married, or close family - please never let me sniff your neck. Gross.