Placements: Week Two - High Care

6:30am, on the dot. Two of us peeled off to different corners of the building - floors one and three, respectively - and we were aware this was going to be a different animal than the last one.

How different, we did not know.

Fewer residents. Fewer staff to cover them. And nearly everyone on this floor needed two sets of hands just to move... standing hoist, ceiling hoist, slide sheets, the whole mechanical ballet of getting a body from bed to chair painlessly.

No solo acts. Everything's a duet.

Monday's team was there. I hovered around the edges while the RN ran through the handover... night shift's notes translated into the day's marching orders. Took ten minutes flat. Then the gun went off.

Same drill, three days running: by 6:40, every staff member paired up with their partner, personal care kit prepped, knocking doors.

I was buddied with a woman who moved like she was late for her own wedding. I could barely keep pace. If I paused to look at someone, a room or something, I'd lose her!

Let's call her Marissa. She's originally from the Philippines. 65 years of age, yet moved damn fast.

The residents adored her... and I mean adored, the real thing, not the polite tolerance I saw some staff get. She was kind with a spine of steel underneath it. Bossy, in that specific way... firm, loving, zero patience for nonsense, the kind of no-bullshit warmth you can't fake. Efficient doesn't cover it. Her level of care was immaculate. Surgical, almost, if surgery came with a smile.

Day one, no easing in. Marissa had me straight into showers, bed baths, incontinence changes, feeding... the full menu of what this job actually demands once you strip away the orientation-packet language. Twenty-some years of doing this had taught her tricks nobody puts in a manual... how to change a fussy resident without a fight, how to land someone off a ceiling hoist with their lower back pressed just right into the wheelchair so they don't slide the second you look away.

6:30 to 10am was the eye of the storm.

The whole floor moving at once... toileting, incontinence care, bed baths, showers, a flurry of purposeful motion and almost no conversation. Nobody had breath to spare on small talk. You just moved, and moved fast, and trusted the person beside you to move just as fast.

I am honoured I was trusted!

And there was something almost tribal about how this crew of six operated... no words needed, just radar. Someone short a partner two rooms down, and two more would peel off to cover. A couple of times my buddy just pointed me toward someone else's door... sent off on trust I hadn't technically earned yet, or maybe trust wasn't the word.

Maybe it was just triage. Whatever it was, I took it.

Nearly every resident up here needed two of us. Which meant real time with the hardware - hoists, slide sheets - and an education in reading people who couldn't always tell you what they needed. Half of them non-verbal, or offering a word or two, quiet, if you were paying close enough attention to catch it.

One of them barely moved at all. A hand twitch here, a word muttered under his breath there... the rest was stillness. I was tasked with feeding him. Talked to him the whole time, the way that feels a little absurd when you're met with nothing back. He ate in silence, eyes fixed on the television, giving me nothing to work with.

Then I clocked a flag on the wall. Didn't recognise it. Quick search on my phone... Croatian. (I didn't have access to his Care Plan previously, so had no way of knowing his nationality).

"Ah, Croatian flag," I said.

Something shifted. His eyes came off the TV and found me. Just for a second. That was enough to send me down a rabbit hole... a few phrases in Croatian, the kind you'd use at a dinner table, and I fumbled through them while I fed him. Didn't get a word back.

He turned, just slightly. Smiled at me. Then, back to the TV.

Small thing. Meant everything. One of those moments that made the whole exercise worth it.

And something clicked... some quiet confidence that maybe I could actually stand in a room with the best of them and hold my own.

Made me think of what the disability agency I work with, and Steve's mum, once said about me: skills can be taught. Attitude can't.

First time in three days I felt that all the way through. Maybe - just maybe - I'm actually cut out for this.

Same as last week... different methods but efficient care being the game. But unlike Peter, Marissa chatted about the residents (While Peter taught me a lot, it was from a tactical perspective. Marissa taught me the soft skills that underscore everything).

Backstories. Signs to watch out for. Reading care plans. I devoured every word of these unofficial lectures.

I learned by watching her and getting corrected in real time, mid-motion. She was patient.

I learned that patience, efficiency and genuine care CAN go hand in hand. That's the thing nobody tells you until you've stood in the room and watched someone who's actually good at it work.

Let the course paperwork and confusing instructions say what they want. (Yes, we've had to navigate that too!)

With the 60 hours of aged care placements out of the way, we still have the paperwork to finish. Inevitably there'd be shortcomings which boil down to what the actual instructions say, what the teacher interprets (or expects us to deliver) them, and how we understand the whole thing.

Needless to say booklets that sync with the teacher's expectations will pass. The others will get pulled up, lectured on how this was what was NOT asked, and will have to rewrite.

Either way, I know what happened in every room. And I know not everyone bothers to find out a man's flag before they feed him, let alone learn a few words from his language.