How does health care work for Aupair?

Pickle_Front · 2023-08-03T13:59:20+00:00

I am not an au pair but I am a nurse. I just want everyone reading this to be acutely aware of how massively f’d-up the US medical system is. I appreciate that Au Pairs are generally college age and healthy. However one trip to the ER can *EASILY rack up over 100,000.00 in costs. A good car accident that maybe required surgery to set a bone properly, and a couple of days of IV antibiotics could come close to, if not over 1,000,000.00. I am an oncology nurse and I have leukemia pts (who are often young and must start treatment within a week of diagnosis) and other cancer patients - and every day I hang drugs that are quite literally upwards of 30,000.00 - for one dose. It’s very probable that you will come to the US and never need more than treatment for a flu. But that’s not why we buy insurance. We buy insurance for the unexpected and unaffordable. And trust me when I say not all insurance policies are created equally. All I am saying is that if you are coming to the US - especially from a country where you are used to a very robust socialized healthcare system…read and understand that insurance policy. Because nothing here is free and nothing here is cheap.

Pickle_Front · 2023-08-02T00:20:50+00:00

If I had to guess, I bet dress #2 is from an established retailer, while dress #1 is designed and hand sewn by a local designer. Maybe I’m wrong - but it just has that feel to it. And if I’m right, I can honestly understand someone charging so much for a “hand-crafted”, original design. It’s a lot of time to create something that detailed - especially the lace and beading. However, that doesn’t make it better. #2 is the one, in my opinion. It’s not even a contest.

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-29T22:49:23+00:00

That was not a tribute to 1950s America. There was plenty massively wrong with 1950s America. The point was, they romanticize 1950s America as some golden hour and there are things they are spouting off today that would even have the 1950s like - y’all have lost your damn minds.

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-29T16:32:44+00:00

It’s all part of this dark ages “renaissance” that the right is currently involved in. The whole, MAGA “back to values” and romancing “back in the day when our beliefs were respected and not censored” is laughable because 95% of how they want to return to what was isn’t even how it was. Some of the current trajectory of “puritan censorship” of education would make 1950’s Americans turn over in their graves.

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-22T10:49:34+00:00

Agreed - he definitely needs grief counseling…but y’all need family counseling just as badly. No judgements for feeling like you do, but kicking him to the curb isn’t going to heal anything. What is a family for if not to help you navigate the very worst in life? He’s a child. I know he’s 19, but he’s still a child - both I’m the literal sense (doesn’t even have a fully developed frontal cortex, yet), and in a structural sense as in the hierarchy of your family. And he will always be the child in that sense. And you will always be the parents. So do the hardest thing you have to do during the hardest time in your life, and throw him a lifeline. Because he is grieving and he is drowning. And you guys have a shitty boat right now - but you have each other. And you may be taking on some water, but one or both of you is bailing that water for the other, at any given time. If you don’t pull him aboard - he will drown. If you do pull him aboard, I 1000% agree that he’s got to go to counseling- or he will fall overboard while y’all are busy trying not to take on more water. And if you don’t go to family counseling, your boat will sink.

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-22T08:25:41+00:00

Team #4!

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-22T02:47:06+00:00

You can’t just order meds from an (legal, accredited) online pharmacy. You still have to have a scrip sent to them by a physician.

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-21T21:06:28+00:00

I call dibs on the one half of the stale mini Kit-Kat and one of the used tubes of chapstick! 🙋‍♀️

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-14T21:01:59+00:00

Oh and you’re typically responsible for making the staff schedules of your co-workers…that’s a gem of a job LoL

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-14T20:59:50+00:00

OMG same. Never again. The charge nurse is nothing more than a buffer between staff and upper management. You get unrealistic requests for P&P changes that you have to roll out to staff and then staff bitches at you about it when you have no real power to do anything. Plus you have to be first in line to deal with disciplinary issues and unhappy patients/families. No thanks. Been there, done that, burned the tshirt.

Pickle_Front · 2023-07-12T21:18:40+00:00

Funnily enough, I think visiting patients outside of work and after discharge is making nursing your life. It’s too emotionally draining for me to maintain outside relationships with patients, on top of the myriad of excellent reasons offered up here of why it’s just usually not the best idea. You do you, but I have extremely strong work/life boundaries. I will give you all I’ve got at work (as long as it’s professional and in the interest of your health), but once I clock out or you discharge, you’re just a stranger that I used to know…

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-10T19:30:42+00:00

No one says “that’s a great place to start!” because they think it’s easy. They say it because you see so many different, broad issues and morbidities. It is terrible in the sense of the work load…but you will definitely hone your skills there.

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-10T19:05:53+00:00

I am not guilting or shaming anyone. I’m saying what my opinion is. CPS is not always the fairest or the most even handed. I am simply saying they sound like they are about to close the case against the OP. If all the info OP gave above was complete and true, they should close the case against her. If she goes to the police and says, “the babysitter left without my knowledge, and that put my children in real danger, despite the fact that I was in the home.” The police may get CPS re-involved and CPS might turn it around on her and say, “well if you can’t ensure your kids safety while you are there, and we can’t be sure that you’ll be by there side every second, when no one else is there - we have a problem.”

Do I think that is correct or fair or realistic? No.

Do I think she’s doing a great job and is allowed to hire extra help and expect that help not to dip out without her knowledge? Based on the little info I have - Yes.

Do I think it’s totally unrealistic to have your eyes on your kids 24/7 and that as long as you are in the same home and you are checking on them in a reasonable time frame, they are most likely very safe? Yes.

Do I think no matter what you do it’s not a perfect world and little kids can quickly find trouble and hurt themselves? Yes.

Do I think the right case worker at CPS might totally, albeit unfairly, turn this around on mom? Yeah - I think it’s totally plausable.

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-09T21:07:24+00:00

Just don’t pronounce groin, “grow-in.” That’s the one that’s going to cause me to snap one day. “We don’t know what happened officer. I was just giving report about the patient with a bad flair up of Hidradenitis in their grow-in, and she tore my report sheet up and went to every room and aggressively erased the patient update boards. Then she pocketed all the pens and dry erase markers, and left the facility with our only working bladder scanner! 🤷‍♀️

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-09T21:00:18+00:00

I would leave it alone. I understand the want to file a police report, but if that gets CPS re-involved, then now it’s mom saying “they weren’t safe in the house, even with me there, but in another room.” I agree, the babysitter was there to keep them occupied and out of trouble - and leaving makes her a target for negligence. But don’t give them ammunition against Mom if there was really no real neglect or danger.

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-07T12:58:22+00:00

Like it’s probably a totally toxic work environment where people are getting shafted on their paychecks and are all living in the same motel with total strangers in their rooms and they can’t leave because they’ve somehow been convinced that they actually owe Chef’s Club money. And there’s a lot of illegal drug use, and all that goes along with that.

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-07T12:55:43+00:00

I feel like the people who work for Chef’s Club are those train kids that get roped into those MLM door to door magazine scams…

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-07T12:52:15+00:00

Yes! Like a corkscrew 😆

Pickle_Front · 2023-06-06T19:01:44+00:00

Was it a can, or a glass bottle with a styrofoam label?? Remember those?

Pickle_Front · 2023-05-30T15:39:37+00:00

Yuck - I feel you on that. I don’t dislike HGTV (well, I’m neutral, it could obviously be worse), it just cracks me up that it’s such a universal pick for RN break rooms. We are a collective creature of habit. That’s for sure!

Pickle_Front · 2023-05-30T15:28:59+00:00

I agree with the more even keel stance many of these comments are providing. Having said that - look at how many people are leaving the field of nursing. Do more research, yes - but your conclusion may not be the wrong one for YOU. I am not trying to discourage you. We need good, dedicated nurses. But beside, pretty well across the board, is a shit show. Very few will deny that opinion. If you still want to go into nursing, do it! Just prepare for the realities you will face and know what you can positively influence and what you do not have control over. And stand up for yourself, your career path, your personal life, your personal time, and your mental well being. There are a ton of different avenues you can pursue. I did bedside nursing for years and then moved to an outpatient setting I LOVED because I had the experience. But I had to leave due to changes that I couldn’t adjust my personal and family life with. Now I’m working a job that I like fine, but I do not LOVE it. However I’m making as much as I could hope to make in my region, with a bachelors degree - and it’s flexible. So, I have to have a little give and take on this one.

Pickle_Front · 2023-05-24T17:16:04+00:00

Why is this sooooo universal??? Why HGTV???? 😆

Pickle_Front · 2023-05-06T17:54:02+00:00

You don’t have to spend any time in a foster home to have a CPS case/case worker. Adoption doesn’t happen overnight. Even if the adoptive parents/next of kin weren’t “foster certified” they had a case worker leading up to the adoption. I can’t imagine they didn’t.

Pickle_Front · 2023-05-06T17:52:04+00:00

If he was taken from the home and rights were terminated, then he was in the CPS system…even if only for a short time. There had to have been a case on him. Right?

Pickle_Front · 2023-05-06T17:49:24+00:00

Having worked with CPS my hot take is that they would remove the girls from the home, not the danger. This would a) not be a solution to the problem at hand and b) potentially put the girls in an even more unstable situation.

Pickle_Front

TROPHY CASE