neuro-IFRAH and sleep and swimming and augh sleep deficits did I mention sleep

I'm so tired still! I went to bed by 10pm and got up at 6:40 and I could have slept another six hours!! Soo soo tired trying to catch up from last week's massive sleep deficit! I also had crazy dreams about being in scary claustrophobic situations. 🙁  It was not cool.

We had a great lecture on neuro-IFRAH yesterday and today we are actually going to have 2 hours of lab time, learning technique. I should be excited but in all honesty I'd right about now rather just sit still all day.

At noon I get to go have my first session as a participant in a lumbar stability program at the University, then from 1-4 we listen to lectures on Frames of References by other students – Allen's Cognitive Levels and Sensorimotor.

THEN, Allison and I are going to go swimming to work out and then I'm going to study as much as I can (hopefully energized from the swimming and not tempted to nap) before I work 9 to midnight!

I would really like to share more about neuro-IFRAH after today. I think there's a realistic chance I'll get to it at some point tonight too, are you all keeling over dead in shock? I hope so. But not really because then my stats would go down. 🙁

Have a great day, everyone!
Karen

Neuro-IFRAH – yay!

We have Neuro-IFRAH today! Patti, are you excited? I am!

More later! I have a big test Thursday that will consume a lot of my time studying, but after that is over my time should increase dramatically for fun stuff like blogging!

Jello Cereal: My OT skills are lacking

Scene: Me at friend’s house. Paul folding laundry, me watching.

Me: I’d help you fold your laundry, but you know I suck at it.

Me pondering: You know, I’m probably going to be a crappy OT because I’m so dazzingly incompetent at doing all the functional things like laundry and dishes.

Paul: Yeah. You’ll be like, you lost your arms in an accident but don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way for you to put jello on your cereal.

Me: Exactly

(Note: One time I ran out of milk for my brown rice krispies and I decided they just needed something to help wash them down so I threw some red jello on top. It was good, so shut up).

PS2: My other job tonight while at their house was to sit in the vestibule of their laundry room while Paul started laundry, and I just had to push the chickens living in there from trying to get into the rest of the house. These are the days of my lives.

Holy cow! I really AM famous! But not.

I check my stat counter more or less daily, and I typically stay stable at around 13-30 new visits a day. I checked today and double-taked. On Friday I had a 135 new visitors! That's like ten bazillion times higher than normal! I tried to figure out where the traffic came from, but I couldn't. If you are a new reader who found me on Friday, I'll be your new best friend and give you lots of secret knowledge about OT school (cough) if you tell me where the link was!

I also wish I had been a little more SANE this week in my entries, but it's been such a busy week that pretty much my blog entries have consisted of “AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH more later”. Oh well.

Tonight I was supposed to work on stuff like I said in the previous post. Instead I took a 3 hour nap (because I was on a huge sleep deficit and I'm still tired so I will try not to feel TOO bad), but also spent 2 hours at a party instead of 1, and also spent well over an hour at another friend's house instead of like 45 minutes. So um, it's now almost midnight on Saturday and I have done NOTHING school-related. I'm gonna be freaking out tomorrow. :O

The good news is, the reason I was staying at the housewarming party two hours is that it was filled with nurses and other vaguely OT-related people. One person has a daughter with William's syndrome who was at the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, which has OTs. She got my e-mail and is going to send me more info, so hopefully that can be a contact for my OT department for fieldwork locations. Another one was a NICU nurse at the Med and I asked her about the feasibility of her being allowed to let me come in one day with her and get some basics on what is going on, to help me be a better volunteer with the newborns. Another one is getting her master's in social work at UT and is in a building I am in regularly at UT, and we discussed trying to network, since there is often times overlap between OT/social work, and it would be great if social workers could recommend OT more often. Etc. Plus, yesterday I ran into an old professor from college who also teaches kindergarden and told me she would love to have OT students “practice” on her kids. So it's been a network filled weekend and I LOVE IT!

I eat, sleep, and breathe OT. I think about it constantly. I love it. If you like the medical field, like people, like creativity and efficiency, like psychology, like um, anything, you will love OT school.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY SCHOOL IS THE WAY TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!

Holding babies in a hospital, or appealing to a Philanthropist, it never ends

Whew. Been a very busy week with a lot of late nights. It’s a good thing most of my OT classmates have Verizon too or I’d be over by about 500% on my minutes. The night before two of the of the big presentations, my call phone log went something like this “Brooke Brooke Allison Brooke Brooke Camiell Anna Camiell Brooke Brooke Allison…” etc.

The class enjoyed the Cognitive Behavioral video we made that I showed a few posts down. It was easy and FUN to make. Overall our presentation was good, the game we prepared was not so great. I also had staff meeting, which is where once a month I meet with the faculty as the student representative (Co-VP of Academic Affairs along with one across the state). I pointed out that I think I’m pretty “with it”, organized and efficient, and yet it was near impossible for me to keep up with all the different groups we were in. Especially Thursday and Friday, when I was interacting with ELEVEN other people in FOUR groups for THREE different things. But we’re also in a Lab Group, a Group Group, a woodworking Group, and in about 9 other group projects with 2-3 people, and then oftentimes the groups have to interact with other groups, doubling the trauma. One thing about OT school, at least our OT school, is that you RARELY will do ANY project or big paper alone. You are in a group for pretty much everything. Now, I hate group work, but you eventually get used to it and it gets more fun, so don’t think OT school isn’t for you just based on what I said.

I was thinking today about how much fun I’ve had in the last few months. EVEN when I’m stressed and exhausted and threatening to drop out of OT school like I was this week, IT WAS STILL FUN because of the material and the people. I feel so lucky to be doing something I find so fascinating. The Visitable and Accessible Environment Project we have been working on is also over, we presented to a philanthropist a 20K budget proposal for a home adaptation using my home, as needed by a woman with ALS who had a power wheelchair and bilateral upper extremity weakness. We had to get estimates on getting a ramp put in, widening doorways, lowering the closet, raising the electrical switches and lowering the light switches, and changing the furniture around. Then we had to pretend the philanthropist rejected us and we had to present a 2K budget to the family, just getting down to the basics – not always pretty but at least functional. I learned a lot from my project as well as watching everyone else’s.

One big mistake the people who went on Day 1 made was that they did not really “appeal” to the philanthropist. They didn’t cater to his emotional drive or his generosity or explain why he should do it. It was just like “We need this, we need that”. The philanthropist, who was actually our normal professor, did a good job of being abrupt and busy, which took us all aback but was a good learning experience. It reminded us we needed to get down to the nitty-gritty. A philanthropist offering up to 20K doesn’t care about 10 dollar things, he wants to know why you want 3K for this object, 5K for this object…etc. Those of us that went on Day 2 got to go change our stuff around based on the stuff we saw happen on Day 1. It was fun. I can basically recite to you my part..”…how can you help? Home adaptation allows us to modify her home to make it safer, improve her quality of life, and provide her with more independence. Unfortunately the people who need it the most are often the ones who can least afford it. This is where your generosity comes in….” etc.. and btw, the people on day 1 DID do a good job, they just didn’t get the benefit we got of knowing how the professor/philanthropist was going to ask and how he was going to challenge our choices.

I’m really tired today – I had work until midnight and then I am now volunteering every other Saturday from 10am-noon at the local children’s hospital. Since I haven’t had much sleep anyway, that was extra hard this weekend. The first baby I tried to hold was receptive when I was standing over him, but as soon as I picked him up he was unhappy, so I put him back in and felt kind of incompetent. The next baby I went to was adorable. She had been in that particular ward her entire life. She smiled at me a lot and I interacted with her a long time. I eventually found her nurse to make sure I could hold her and then literally held her for about an hour and a half. I just stroked her feet and arms, held her close to my body, looked her in the eyes, and sang to her. A lot of the babies in those wards who have been there long enough, especially those without parents, tend to develop some bad habits. Like they may develop sensory issues and not be able to handle a lot of touch, and/or may only be able to calm down if left alone. This one seemed fine and just needed the loving. At one point, staring into her eyes, I got tears in my own. It just seemed heartbreaking to me at that moment, thinking of all she has gone through and what her future might be. She seemed perfectly content to be held by a stranger, just soaking in love. She eventually fell asleep in my arms and I continued to hold her, as I figured it was probably a rare luxury for a baby to get to sleep in someone’s arms when they are in a hospital without a parent. Unfortunately at that point I needed to go, but I hated to think I might wake her up by accident. I gingerly put her back in bed, and she started to open her eyes. I quickly put my arms in and held her arms and legs against her body, and it worked for a few minutes, but when I then moved again, she woke up for good. I felt bad, but by now I was already like 20 minutes late, so I had to go. I am really glad I got the experience of being at that hospital for my Level 1 rotation, because I had a much better idea of what to do with these babies for calming. The babies are still intimidating with all their tubes and issues, but it gets easier with time I think. Plus weekends are calmer and that helps a lot to volunteer during those times. Plus I am not as scared of the monitors as some volunteers would be – like the baby’s respiration monitor would drop to zero and I think the average person would panic, but since I had been there before watching an OT I knew that I should monitor her behavior, and since her heart rate and oxygen were fine and she was breathing the same as she had been, it was probably just that one of her connections to the monitor had gotten lose. That was probably one of the most important things the OT taught me about being in there – yes, watch the monitors and listen to them, but when the baby seems fine and it says their oxygen is at a life-threatening level all of a sudden, it’s most likely due to a connection issue – watch the baby, watch the monitor, and look for correlations.

This is long and has no real flow, but I had a lot of random things to get off my chest. I’m about to head out but I hope to be back early because I am REALLY tired and I desperately need to start working on some tests, one needing to be submitted Monday and one in Wednesday in class. Tomorrow I will work a lot on them, but I’m supposed to meet several different people and run to several different stores, so as always, I’m low on time!

I always like to promise a more coherent blog post will come soon, but who are we kidding. More random blog posts to come.

An Emic Perspective

I don't want all my (nonexistent) adoring fans to think I've died. I am heading out to go volunteer in a step-down NICU kinda thing at a local children's hospital, I'm a little scared! Then have a ton of stuff to do but blogging is one of them – been a busy week but I want to share!

Guy who asked about going to OT school in comments – I'll email you soon. 🙂

Karen
PS: Go look up emic/etic and try to explain the difference to me. It's hard.

I'm drowning!!!!!!!!!!

Too many projects and tests at once! I'm drowning in a sea of presentations!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I can't even keep track of all my groups – I'm with Camielle and Anna on one presentation and we have to work with Meg, Marla, and Joe on another. Then I'm in another group with Brooke and Allison and we are working with Kerri, Kim, and Emily – so in two days of presentations I'm dealing with 4 different groups. A little chaotic. I'm struggling to retain sanity.

I really really don't have the time to write for a day or two, although I did write down some ideas around 330am last night. AHAHAHA.

I mostly just wanted to say I got a present in the mail today from Amazon.com from my dad. It is called “Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab”. Isn't that sweet??? I'm looking forward to reading it sometime soon!!!!!!!!!

Ok off to go work on two different Powerpoints…

==========
Oh wait, I want to share the poem I wrote for Merrolee, New Zealander Queen of OT Blogs:

Oh Merrolee,
I am filled with glee
Whenever I see your blog posts
on OT.

So Merrolee
I beseech thee,
POST SOME MORE!!!!!!!!

4am, I hate you

It's 7:40am – I finally fell asleep after 4am. Fun. LONG 3 days ahead of me, should be interesting. 🙁

Wish me luck!!!!!!!!

AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (again)

I hate to write a new post over the VIDEO you need to check out below. If you don't check it out you are not a good OT/OTS/person. (Guilt trips are a wonderful therapeutic tool, and my use of this technique shows I clearly understand the psychodynamic frame of reference…) just kidding, I'm delirious.

So anyway it's 2:20am and I have neglected my poor bloggiepoo lately but it's been insane. That's the life of an occupational therapy student – waves of insanity tempered by FUN. It's like a permanent swim in the ocean where usually you just dodge the occasional jellyfish and every once in a while you run into a pool of sharks and just try not to loose too many vital limbs.

I just stopped working on my accessible environment project. I know more about electrical conduit than I ever wanted to know. I need to be up in 5 hours for Group and a very busy few days so I should go to sleep. I want to share what all has been going on but it may be a few days. TOO MANY PROJECTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Did I mention it is 2:20am???

Grammatical structures like !!!!!!!!!!!!! and ?????????? become a lot more prevalent as the clock gets further past midnight.

?!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS: I'm not satisfied with my Google rankings. I have to start more liberally sprinkling in terms like occupational therapy school, occupational therapy student, occupational therapy blog, occupational therapy student blog…)

We're stars….check it out

Brooke, Allison, and I made a short 2 minute video to illustrate our Cognitive Behavioral Frame of Reference that we are presenting Thursday. Using the true story of me, as I went through cog-bx therapy at age 17 and it helped me a lot with my anxiety. Hope you all like the video!

PS: The cell phone ringing at the end is a joke the class will get although nobody else would. Only two times in the last two semesters has a phone rang in class – and both time it has been my phone. Oops.