30 Jun 2008

Day 1 of first Level II fieldwork – Pediatrics – morning pre-start – aughhh

I actually managed to fall asleep around 1:30am and got up around 6:20am, not too bad. Good thing I set four alarms, I used up all of them!

I've eaten poorly and/or not exercised for most of June vacation so today is my first day back on track!

I'm eating a healthy bowl of fresh strawberries, sliced almonds, and lowfat organic peach yogurt. About to take my hodge podge of multivitamins and random supplements – I just kinda throw a few of the vitamins in the various days so each day is different! Folic acid, biotin, cranberry, vitamin E, calcium, who knows…lol.

I've already blow-dried and flat-ironed my hair for the first time in a month, lol. I have a healthy lunch prepared with a ton of hypoglycemia-friendly snacks, overkill but I like to be prepared – the more nervous I am, the more prepared I try to be, it calms me down.

I can hear the dog barking outside – public enemy # 1 – I'm going to go outside in like a bee-keeping outfit to corral him because he will otherwise get my scrubs covered in wet muddiness which will severely irritate me, he already got my white shorts the other day + my purse + my arm and leg. He's a GIANT golden doodle with way too much exuberance. Once mud dog is not a danger, Then I can get dressed and head to UT to drop off important documents, drive to Mississippi, put on make-up, walk-inside, and start DAY 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you seriously just waste a minute of your time reading this? Sorry yo. Another thing I do when I'm nervous is write and plan. AHAHAHAHAHAA

I'll be posting later on today!! I'm excited! And scared! And oh man I still need to get out my immunizations!! Augh okay moving on….

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 2

30 Jun 2008

TOMORROW IS MY FIRST LEVEL II FIELDWORK – PEDIATRIC SPECIALTY – AUGHHHHHH

I just finalized a close to final draft for the OT Practice article unless my adviser readers rip it to shreds in which case I'll go all postal on them. Just kidding. It probably needs more work than I'm willing to admit right now at 1:10am. I need to get up at 6am so I should go to sleep. Beyond basic showering and getting ready, I have to stop by UT to drop off some things in inter-campus mail like um, my registration and fee sheet, that is due like, in two days. And then I want to leave by 7:50amish max for my place since I don't know how bad traffic is, although it shouldn't be hideous. I'm supposed to be there 830amish until somewhere between 5 and 7pmish, I forget exactly when.

I have a new pair of scrubs, a bunch of groceries that i bought around midnight so I don't starve to death tomorrow, and some children OT books, ready to go. Oh crap I need to pull out my immunizations stuff. Ugh. Okay. Gonna go do that. Then sleep. Hopefully will sleep for real and not have nightmares. I THINK IT IS ALL GOING TO BE OKAY!!!!!!!!!! I think I can I think I can I think I can…

TOMORROW IS THE START OF THIS BLOG BEING OT-MINDED AGAIN!!!!!!!! THANK GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

29 Jun 2008

i start fieldwork tomorrow…augh

I should probably be really nervous since I start fieldwork tomorrow. I had all these visions of organizing and cleaning and preparing – a montage where here I am carefully organizing my bookcases – here I am dusting – here I am looking up pediatrics – but instead I've been sleeping a lot, hanging out with friends, and gingerly stepping over all the stuff on the floor. My house is messy, my life is messy, my car is messy….you get the picture.

I was going to go hold babies today since I didn't go yesterday but I think I'm once again going to pass because my back is still really bothering me. I probably will go to a doc or chiropractor soon – the back pain is leading to nerve pain down my legs. Fun. So now the more realistic plan is….clean surface in house so not jumping over things, prep for first day by looking up a few diagnoses/play therapy techniques, and spend some time with friends. And grocery shop!  And finish the article.

The most EXCITING thing to me about starting fieldwork….this is sad…is that I will have blog material once again, coming easily…I know I have to be careful of HIPAA but I can just modify things to make people non identifiable. 🙂 Pretty funnnnnnnnnn. I love real life adventures.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

27 Jun 2008

Chewelry???


My friend Sher asked me about a nursing necklace the other day, and then I stumbled across this in my RSS feed, this is a mom who has a beautiful little girl with Rett’s. This chewelry looks awesome. Maybe it would make a good nursing necklace.

Following entry is from http://caitlynsfamily.blogspot.com/

e will of course start with Chewlry!!! I am in love with these stretchy
plastic things! When I was in Chicago, I saw a girl chewing on a
necklace, and I asked the dad to tell me all about it! They are called
Chewlry. So that night Kelly (Brooklyn’s mom and fellow Internet junky)
and I looked it up on line. We found where they could be purchased, and
I went home prepared!! Well, I finally got around to looking it up
again a couple weeks ago. I of course had to get the mega chewlry
because it said it was stronger! (well, they are also bigger and that
is why it is twisted) The whole point was to give Caitlyn something to
chew on other that her shirt. Let me tell you, this plastic necklace
does so much more than that! We have 7 colors-blue, purple, green, red,
orange, yellow and white. They haven’t totally replaced the hand
chewing, but they have helped. What they have done, is changed her hand
pattern. She doesn’t chew on her shirts (but darn it they are still wet
a little because the necklace gets wet) and probably the big thing is
the fact that she has almost completely eliminated the “crotch grab”
from her hand patterns. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this, but
there are days when she constantly looked as though she had wet herself
because she would suck on her hands and then grab herself! (not a “i
need to go potty” grab…that is a single finger point…this was a
full on grab) These necklaces are a wonderful thing!!! And so worth the
outrageous price I paid for them! And, no matter what color Caitlyn is
wearing, she always gets to choose the color of her necklace…she wore
orange one day with a brown shirt…

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

26 Jun 2008

OT and POW!

Tomorrow morning I am going to some Low Vision case study presentation by some Level II fieldwork students, at UT…in the afternoon I am going to go visit my first fieldwork rotation to make sure I can find it, and maybe observe some to help decrease nervousness (the OT suggested it)! Also my friend Doug flies in and I think I'm going to do Bingo at Ave Maria for the last time since I won't be able to once I start fieldwork!

Today was busy and tomorrow will be too, I better go to sleep! I didn't work on my articles like I said I would but hopefully tomorrow midday will work out!

I just want the record to show that I recently played Scrabble with an OT friend of mine and when I tried to use “OT” and “POW” together (with the T under the O in POW), she said no because OT isn't a word by itself, and I thought that was TOTALLY uncool of her!! OT and POW are like best friends!!!!!! Synonyms! Hand holders! Pow! OT! Gives you the POWER! Kapow! Pow! Okay I'll stop now.

Good night!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1

25 Jun 2008

Boring boring boring boring boring…. FIELDWORK AUGH

I got back into Memphis tonight around 530pm. Thanks Suzanne and Arnie for hosting me!! I unpacked and organized for a few hours and then headed to Kerri's and Brent's to spend the night even though they are gone – I have a dentist appointment at 9am tomorrow about 2 minutes from their house so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone by A) giving their cat some loving and B) not getting up extra early just to have my teeth tortured.

Their cat is freaking me out though, because first she spent a long time meowing at the top of the game closet, and then a giant flying cockroach attacked us, and well, it's just not been the most relaxing night, hopefully I won't be eaten by a ghost next.

I've also spent about 5 hours today working on an OT Practice Article….it seemed like it would be so easy….guess what, it's of course never that simple! I've stopped for the night and am waiting for feedback from some trusted OT advisers. 🙂

I'm lying on the floor on my tummy with my laptop staring at the kitty and writing this e-mail…I think I've had enough action for one day and should go to sleep.

Tomorrow:
9am Dentist
10amish-130pmish – see my friend Sarah + fam
2pm – meet fieldwork coordinator Lisa to discuss some questions
3pmish – Go to St. Jude for database entry
6pmish(?) – invited to a friend's house for dinner
BREAKING NEWS UPDATE:  THEY NOW MAKE CROCS WITH HEELS THE WORLD HAS ENDED
9pmish??? See other friends??
+ grocery shop + work on OT articles + who knows

My plan for the next few day involves seeing friends, getting lots of errands run, finishing up these two articles, and getting prepared for my first Level II Fieldwork…sooo scared…I don't feel scared during the day but at night I have lots of nightmares about it. Almost every nightmare involves freaky things at a local children's hospital. Like having to go through tiny tiny passageways…I always wake up suffocating! Yuck!!

Ways I want to prepare include…figuring out some healthy meals and snacks to ward off the nervousness-induced hypoglycemia…getting some cold packs to ward off the nervousness-induced temperature regulation issues that make me feel like a furnace…getting my house and life in order to help keep me calm…like figuring out how to get to the place, getting my scrubs in order, blah blah blah….and then studying up on common pediatric diagnoses, and developmental assessments like the Peabody, and even doing some silly homework like reviewing names of the Wiggles, VeggieTales, Doodlebops…etc. LOL. The more prepared I feel, the less anxious I feel…and since I'll be pretty anxious no matter what, I gotta focus on the things I can control to help give me a little bit of peace at least! I don't like change or new things…and to know that the next 9 months is nothing BUT new challenges every day, is REALLY SCARY TO ME!!! It's like living my year in Norway all over again – every day had a new challenge….and it was one of the best years of my life but also one of the hardest and scariest. Maybe it won't be that bad. I am too hard on myself.

Ok…to study….I guess Down's syndrome, CP, autism/spectrum, sensory processing disorder, mental retardation, and hmmmm….that's probably a good place to start with reviewing…plus look up developmental milestones for first few years of life…basics of hand skills for handwriting…plus some popular kid cartoon characters…blahdey blah blah!!!

GOOD NIGHT!!!!
PS: One of these days I'll catch up on my RSS feeds for OT blogs!! I'm so impressed with how many people are blogging these days!!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

24 Jun 2008

24 Jun 2008

24 Jun 2008

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Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

23 Jun 2008

Disability/diversity/headed back home

I am WAY behind on deadline….working on part of a paper where I focus on disability as a form of diversity often overlooked when discussing increasing diversity in OT workforce as one of the biggies of the Centennial Vision…of all professions, OT should be the biggest in accomodating people with disabilities!! And bad spellers!!

If I can get that done tonight – I’ve done all the big scuttlework – then tomorrow I can focus more on next article, a biggie!!

Tonight is last night in Nashville – I head back to Memphis tomorrow for first time in 20 days. When I get in I will plan to focus on chores like groceries, unpacking, watering garden, going through 3 weeks of mail, prepping for chores/appointments for next few days, etc. And the article. Once those two things are done I am finally free to focus on studying and preparation for my upcoming pediatric rotation, starting June 30th in Mississipi. I will be working 9am to 7pm Mon-Thurs, augh! LOL. I checked out the place’s website and it looks like a cool place though. I’m excited. And I can wear scrubs!! Phew!!

Ummm…..I guess that’s all to share for right this moment. My eyes are crossing. Augh. Okay back to diversity!!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none