31 Jul 2008

Introducing Lester the Lion Kitty

Wait. Before I can go to sleep, I have to share with you all my excitement. I may be inheriting Lester the Lion Kitty, truly the most bizarre kitty cat you have ever laid eyes on, imagine an inbred dwarf lion with craniofacial abnormalities and you have LESTER.

I need a kitty cat like a hole in the head, but you know, but not every day do you get the opportunity to inherit an inbred lion kitty that could win ugliest cat in the world contests, so we'll see. I think he could become a YouTube star.

I also think that Lester could become the mascot of pro-bulimia organizations, much like the pro-ana societies, because every time you see this cat, you want to throw up. It's that ugly. But just like space/time and hot/cold, at very special conditions, become one in the same, his ugliness becomes his beauty. So ugly it hurts. In a good way.

And before I get any e-mails telling me not to make fun of people with craniofacial abnormalities, or dwarves, or people with genetic deformities due to inbreeding, or people with eating disorders…….I want to adopt this cat, don't I?! (It belongs to my OT supervisor and don't worry, if I adopt it it will be post-rotation, so also, please no nasty e-mails from fieldwork coordinators telling me I'm making an ethically poor choice!!! Also, don't e-mail me telling me I'm too sensitive! Also, don't e-mail me telling me not to tell people what to write!! Also, yeah, just don't e-mail me unless you want to like, say something nice, in which case go ahead, but I'm as always behind on responding. Oh and don't tell me your cat is so-ugly-its-cute-er than MY future kitty…Lester trumps all cats. Period.)

By the way, this cat could probably benefit from occupational therapy – he is gravitationally insecure!!!!!!!!!!!!! He hates his feet off the ground and has to be held in a firm deep hold in order to tolerate it! OT is the cat's pajamas.

Speaking of pajamas, good night…..

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

31 Jul 2008

Today's inappropriate quote of the day

“That baby talks like a Jap” – a very, very, very, very, very country daycare provider lady, at the very rural Mississippi house we visited, on a young (Caucasian!) baby.

A. W. E. S. O. M. E.
It's almost 3am, woopsies. Better go to sleep. More tomorrow about today, more tomorrow about tomorrow too! Ha ha ha. Get to sleep in a little, meet some friends for lunch, see patients 1 to 7pm, meet Allison to go walking, see another friend, blah blah blah, a friendly day. 🙂

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

30 Jul 2008

One last blog shout-out for the night….going to sleep!

See how different OT can be? Awesome blog, Cheryl

Stroke Season

One of my OT coworkers always says that as the heat goes up, the stroke rate goes up too. I evaluated 4 stroke patients yesterday. One was my friend from acute care who transferred to the SNF floor. Hopefully, I will get to continue to work with her and continue our partnership. I have a lot of cool treatment ideas for her right now and am working on a list to share w/ the COTA to get her more comfortable working with CVA pts.

Another lady came in and only speech therapy had been ordered on admission, but I got a referral the next day. She was a little defensive about me showing up to see her, but we took a nice walk and discovered that though she'd been having trouble reading (a major barrier to her preferred leisure activities) she could still recognize symbols and was about 70% on reading basic words. I picked her up solely to educate her on low vision techniques that would make it easier for her to read (fonts, more space between words, high contrast).

Had a very unfortunate gentleman in his early 60's who had a bilateral cerebellar infarct with a 1-sided thalamus infarct as well. This man had just started a new job, so it can be assumed that he was a reasonably active individual PTA. Unfortunately, his current assests are moderate head control, moderate ability to hold sitting balance, and movement in his L elbow and hand. No current speech production, questionable ability to understand others, and a mix of flaccidity and extensor tone in different extremities.

Last guy came in with minimal involvement- some slurred speech, decreased endurance, and slight proprioceptive and sensory deficits. He will go home soon, but there is some question to the future. The PT tried to allude to this with him by saying, “This might be considered a wake-up call” but there is little hope of him changing the behaviors that caused the stroke to start with- obesity, HTN, no exercise, no checkups with doctors, etc. People can change after such events, my dad did after his heart attack and now starts the day with 30-45 minutes of cardio exercise and a cup of oatmeal. But in order to change, you've got to answer the phone on that wake-up call. Here's hoping that this guy does so that I don't see him in 2 months in worse condition.

Title LGT the American Heart Association.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

30 Jul 2008

Yay fieldwork

Kerri is having a good fieldwork at a hospital in physical dysfunction!!! Some excerpts from her blog, sorry for the weird font.

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This morning, I went in early (7 AM) (no outpt til 10) & tx on the floors!!! (in acute care in other words). Then, we had a full day in outpt care! I even got to make an outrigger splint for a pt – my first splint for a pt ever!!! It wasn't pretty but if you could have seen the guy's face when we put that on, it would have made your week! He was so excited to have a regained ability to open his hand to grasp things! He & I also got in a discussion about Wii games & how he could use his Wii at home to help with his rehab! It was awesome!

This is my last week as full time outpt. I will be floating next week between acute, NICU, & outpt (probably NICU & outpt mostly). I am superexcited to work with the itty bitty babies!! yayayayay!

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finally – a full day of outpts!!

Yay! Finally, we saw patients in outpt all day. Recently, it's been like 10 scheduled and only 1 shows up…boring. My CI & I have hypothesized several reasons for this no-show phenomenon: 1. gas: prices are way too high & it's hard to justify coming to therapy when you live 60 mi away or something. as much as I love OT, not everyone has the same passion! LOL 2. holidays/vacations: ppl are in & out of town, busy, and have kids out of school to take care of. Therefore, therapy gets put (understandably) on the back-burner. 3. Ppl may not understand the benefits/importance of OT. So, we need to get the word out there that OT IS AWESOME & EVERYONE NEEDS A LITTLE OT!!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

30 Jul 2008

29 Jul 2008

October – TOTA Conference in Dickson, Tennessee

Who is going? Raise your hand!!

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I'm pondering!! Hmmmmmmmm!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

29 Jul 2008

DON'T THROW THAT AT MY MOTHER'S HYSTERECTOMY: Week 5 has begun

Best quote of the day:

Out-of-control child with ADHD, chiding another child (who had not done anything wrong): DON'T THROW THAT AT MY MOTHER'S HYSTERECTOMY!
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This weekend was a little emotional/painful for me, LOL. I didn't do anything OT related or volunteer at all….had a lot of my mind. Saturday I was going to go do something but I did something weird and like, got Coke in the wrong pipe or something, and my tummy hurt for HOURS and HOURS and I thought I was going to DIE, and then Sunday I was just very much blah. I saw some friends this weekend and that's about it.

Today was off to a bad start as well as there was some timing miscommunication but it worked out overall. We had some chaos this morning though – I tried to have two kids together (one of the kids was done with the session and I just wanted to use him for the other for social interaction while he waited for his mom anyway), but I didn't structure it well. My OT then put two kids together and structured it well and I watched and learned a lot.

We also saw a one year old baby that is blind that lives out in the middle of nowhere, and saw our typical baby that is deaf and blind, and then there were two evals  + three other kids…all at the new clinic or in that area. Growing really big really fast.

I got home, napped, and then walked with OT Allison for a while on the track….now I'm burning CDs while my hair dries and did about 70% of my kitchen cleaning, LOL. I'm not really feeling the whole therapeutic blogging thing tonight – just not in the best of places – tired, a little stressed, a little worried because I think I might have angered my OT but not sure why, and just in general, not feeling perky. I'm supposedly helping Allison write out her group protocol via online AIM but she doesn't seem to need my help that much! LOL

A(9:40:28 PM): I'm writing up one of my group protocols out…
K(9:40:34 PM): ok, im here for ya
A(9:40:37 PM): and I actually pulled out the group book 😡
A(9:40:46 PM): oh.. a karen face! I tried!!
K(9:40:48 PM): oh lordie im telling the world
K(9:40:50 PM): YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
K(9:40:51 PM): 😡
K(9:41:37 PM): hey i need to let you borrow out of sync child has fun book i bet you could adapt one of their activities to be for a group
K(9:41:42 PM): and/or use in presentation to teachers
A(9:42:12 PM): yay!!  Bring it over tomorrow if you remember!
A(9:42:27 PM): I'll text ya… or I can get it sometime this week..
K(9:42:48 PM): i just pulled it out and put it by front door
K(9:43:22 PM): boo in like 5 minutes my timer is gonna go off saying clean dishes ::cries:::
A(9:43:38 PM): oh no.. not the timer!!
K(9:43:42 PM): oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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And now for an IM of delusional proportions from my fellow New Jersey OT student friend, goodness gracious nooo:

Patti(10:17:38 PM): i can't wait to go back to school.
K(10:18:22 PM): why?
Patti (10:18:28 PM): i miss it
Patti(10:18:37 PM): the people, the pressure, the routine.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

27 Jul 2008

Recipes for things like dough and fingerpaint :)

http://www.seedsrootedinlove.org/Recipes.html

Somehow I think I’m going to be really lazy today….was up a lot during the night feeling yucky…now it’s noon and I’ve been up 20 minutes but I feel like going back to bed, lol….

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

27 Jul 2008

good night im falling apart augh

Today was not a good day health wise! I had the Coke incident which I am pretty sure means I'll end up with ASPIRATION PNEUMONIA ::gasp:: and then while i love my new bed, I'm also a sensitive old soul and it will take me a while to get used to it, as I currently have a really bad headache/neckache/back issue from being unused to it…I'm going to try to go back to bed now that I've swallowed a muscle relaxant….and then tomorrow I want to make some blogging layout changes, hold some babies, see some friends, blah blah blah 🙂
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

26 Jul 2008

AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Handwriting is hard to teach to three year olds whose name is (only letters changed – apostrophe, dash, and capitalizations intact):

B’My-tieL

Yeah. Not gonna happen.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1