My job has driven me to drink this week.

[colditz]

I layed out a 60 year old man on Monday.

Effin' hate my job sometimes.

Poor bloke.

[munz]

what did he do?

[Whizzz]

Dare I ask what your job is Colditz ??

[handlemecarefully]

Blimey - how come?

Are you a night club bouncer?

[colditz]

I am a care assistant, he starved himself to death.

By layed out, I mean I prepared him for the undertaker, not coshed him one!

I'm so angry with him, this was totally preventable, and God he died hard. Such a f^cking mess. The manager said she was going to come and lay him out, in the end she couldn't so I had to do it on my own, cos I ain't asking no 19 year old girl to do that, no way.

I am getting too old too fast with this job. That was the most distressing thing I have ever had to deal with.

[handlemecarefully]

Oh sorry Colditz

[handlemecarefully]

He wanted to die then?

[colditz]

I don't think he did want to die, I just don't think he could deal with food.

he was 5.5 stone the day before he died. I tried sooooo hard to get him to eat, eventually he stopped drinking too. I am just gutted. I work with the elderly, he was only placed with us by default.

You are not the first person to think i am a bouncer type, it must be the name

[Fio2]

how old was he colditz? it is hard

my friend is a care assistant and has walked in on two suicides (young people) and she finds it very hard sometimes to cope with as she tries so hard to help them

[colditz]

Fio2 he was only 60.

[colditz]

I came home monday night and cracked the vodka, did the same last night to. Tonight I am not going to have a drink.

[handlemecarefully]

Sorry about the bouncer type assumption, I expect that you are petite, delicate and an archetypal lady

[handlemecarefully]

I think your job must be very hard...and it must be difficult not to suffer compassion fatigue at times

[colditz]

{grin} No HMC, I look and act like a bouncer type actually, I am just a secret bleeding heart. I should be a bouncer, I would get less upset then.

I do suffer compassion fatigue, I could cry and cry for this bloke. But some times I just want to shout, which is sad and wrong.

[handlemecarefully]

I do think it is reassuring that there are people like you who continue to really feel for the residents looking after our elderly and vulnerable. Not very nice for you though

[colditz]

Thankyou. It is nice to hear that you know, we feel incredibly unappreciated sometimes.

I could deal with the fact he had died, but having to lay him out was so upsetting, I'm only 25 for christ's sake, I don't want to deal with that!

[Lizzylou]

I am full of admiration for you Colditz, I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like.......

[almostanangel]

i think shouting is a good idea hunny,,i was thinking of opening a place with sound proof walls and padded walls with punch bags where people could hire one for ten minutes and just let rip

[yoyo]

I admire you Colditz. My mother has just started this work and has already found certain aspects of it distressing. I know she will encounter this one day as some of the people are well into their nineties. I'm just glad that there are people who are able not just to do this work but to actually care about it too. My mother wishes she had started years ago - she has found her vocation at the age of 58 (and, yes, there are days when she needs a drink too but generally just the one).

[colditz]

At the end of the day, I just couldn't let him go to the undertakers in the state he was in, I wanted him to have some dignity. It's not too much to ask that when you stop breathing someone will make sure you are clean and dressed, in a clean bed.

But God it was so hard this time.

[almostanangel]

can i say thank you ..............he was not my dad, but he prob was someones ..and for you to care enough to give him that sort of respect at the end is heart warming..you are a star and an angel //[[hugs]

[colditz]

Thankyou, he was nobody's dad, but he was the right age to have been mine.

[almostanangel]

//[[hugs]]