I now present to you…new OT students in the blogosphere

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from prospective or incoming OT students lately, and that really pleases me. Everybody seems so enthusiastic and I’m excited about that. Quite a few of them have blogs, so I’d like to share their blogs with you (click on their name), although you have to promise you will come back to mine too!

OT Student Blogs:

Patti – she started OT school this past week. She has charted her journey getting into OT school and her most recent entries, tellingly, are along the lines of, started school, busy, more later. Sound familiar? 😉 I’ve known Patti since I was 12 years old through online work and she is the coolest person in the entire world. Well, kinda.

MamaChill – a brave mom who just started OT school as well. She is a little bit overwhelmed but it sounds like she is still okay! Keep up the good work Mama, you can do it! Loving your blog entries!

Nivea – an enthusiastic undergrad applying to OT schools now and waiting with crossed fingers! Give her some support!

Nathan – male OT student who hasn’t posted in a while. I’m setting him on fire so he’ll start posting again.

Lady of Musotopia – an Australian undergrad OT student who is really busy and really nice! I’ll post her blog if she gives me permission.

Paula – has no blog, but e-mailed me and said she is an OT student starting in September. Have fun, Paula! You seem spunky!

Honorary Ex- OT Student: Natan is a male OT student who recently graduated and is now posting about his experience as a new therapist! I love reading up on his experiences. (Don’t confuse Nathan and Natan! Why do our two males have to have such similar names?)

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I think that’s it. E-mail me or comment if I left you out by accident!
Next post, tomorrow, for incoming occupational therapy students: Ways to impress your new professors!
Other next post, tomorrow, for current New Zealand professor bloggers: There’s more than one way to skin a kiwi.

My occupational therapy goals for the night and babies watching TV

Well, I just got back from Costco/Schnucks and my back is aching and my mind is distracted so I figured I’d type something up really quick here and then get going on work. I’m having a hermit weekend because I’ve gotten so behind on school stuff, so I decided to hole in for the weekend, socially. I have a lot to do so I can’t keep putting it off or I’ll go insane. I’ve already completed my first set of genuine SOAP notes, updated my OTPF cheatsheet, and written two reaction reports on 12-step meetings.

I volunteered today as always at the local pediatric hospital and I am happy to say I did not yank any tubes today. I held one of the same babies as last time for almost an hour, including holding him up on my chest so he was somewhat upright – a rather rare position for some of these babies, and a good challenge for their reflux as well as an opportunity for the babies to get to kick a little against resistance and hold their chest up. He did unfortunately soil himself somewhat on my gown but it didn’t get all the way through the gown to my clothes. Phew. Then I went in to a private room with a baby who was much older than many of the others and on contact precautions. He has a lot of issues and I was scared to prop him up so I just interacted with him a bunch with him on his back. He was watching TV when I came in – I turned it off and he was upset at first but calmed down. He got more and more tired as we played so I ended up singing to him for a long time until he fell asleep. Then I played with a little baby in a swing, again I turned the TV off when I came in because otherwise the babies are distracted by the TV and care less about the personal interaction. I did turn it back on when I left though, even though I knew if the occupational therapist knew she’d kill me! I sometimes struggle with how much “OT” I should attempt with these babies. OT can sometimes upset them when it involves doing things they’d rather not do, and I don’t feel I should be doing that as a volunteer. I’ll sometimes kind of test them by moving my finger around to see if their eyes follow it smoothly, or I’ll watch them reach for something and see if they have jerkiness or tight thumbs from hypertonicity or a weak grasp, etc. I’ll try to give the baby as much sensory stimulation as possible based on what they seem to need – some of them get clearly overwhelmed while others seem to crave it. One of the babies I held seemed to crave being hold while simultaneously being overwhelmed, so I actually wouldn’t look or talk to the baby – I just gazed away as I held him so he could get what he needed without an overload of stimulation. His heart rate would raise the more I interacted with him so I kept an eye on that.

It’s hard – the OTs push for not having TVs in there with these kids who are rarely more than around 5 months old and almost never older than a year. But the nurses feel it helps keep the kid calm and distracted and since they can’t play with the kids all the time, the TV helps out a lot. I see both sides and while I agree the TV is not ideal for such a young kid, it is probably a lifesaver when the nurses are swamped.

Okay anyway, it was a successful visit and I enjoyed it. Each time I go I get a little bit more comfortable with it.
I PROMISE I am going to do the occupational therapy student post, probably later tonight when I need a break!

Here are my occupational therapy goals for the night. (I’ve discovered that because I don’t say occupational therapy that much in my posts, it’s hard to find me in searches, so I’m going to start saying occupational therapy more often, sorry!!)

*Organize work on Joshua Case Study with Group
*Do Step 1 of Treatment Project on child with dyspraxia, more details later
*Work on the VALPAR Powerpoint
*Search on Biofeedback in preparation for a visitor on Thursday and upcoming presentation we are doing
*Read a chapter on Splinting for a splinting lab

Non-OT goal:
Do dishes (my most hated chore).
Organize in general.

Update: The night after I volunteered at the hospital, the sounds of monitors beeping were stuck in my head as I tried to fall asleep!

12-steps revisited. A visit to AA

Today was another adventure in 12-steps.

Allison and I first thought we were going to an Al-Anon meeting at a local church at 7pm. We got to the giant church and the instructions only said it was on the 2nd floor. It was hard to even find the stairs! We got up to the 2nd floor and it was almost deserted. We saw a man come out of one of the rooms and asked him if he knew where the Al-Anon meeting was. He said Al-Anon? I ain’t heard of that, but they hold AA meetings down the hall. I said oh okay, that’s fine too. He was like wait a minute, which one are you looking for? I said either is okay, but I was thinking I hope he isn’t the leader, that would be weird if someone comes in and doesn’t care what meeting they go to! Anyway, he was skeptical, but pointed us down the hall. It was a large empty room with chairs in a circle. Allison and I sat down and waited. We were about 10 minutes early. About two minutes later, the man (apparently maintenance/janitor man) came in and said, normally the person who leads this group is almost an hour early, so it was probably canceled if he isnt here. Allison and I asked if we could wait 10 minutes and then we’d leave. He said fine, but only 10 minutes because he was closing the place up. He left. Then he came back in with a printout and said, show me what meeting you are going to. We were like um, we don’t see it on this printout, but it said on the website this place/time. He said the meetings he had known about were 6 to 8pm and on Saturdays at noon but nobody had been going to the Tues/Thurs in the last week so maybe something had changed. We were like oh okay, thanks. He said to us as we left “It’s okay with me if you drink. I drink.” Allison and I both had to stifle our giggles. That was pretty much the most inappropriate thing you could ever say to an alcoholic!!!

So we were bummed because we had taken the time to drive there and be there, and we both really need to get them done. We came back to my house and decided to see if we could find any at say, 8pm. The only ones were like in Mississippi, and then there was one on this stereotypically bad street. I looked it up on the map and it was awfully close to a good area, so we decided we’d drive by it, and if it looked too scary, we’d just keep driving and not go.
So we drive there, and it’s mostly a nice area ,and then bam, we get to that street and it’s almost immediately awful. We drive about a block and it is getting progressively scarier, plus the addresses are getting higher so we’ve luckily clearly missed it. I did an immediate illegal U-turn in the middle of the street because I wasn’t willing to go another millimeter in the direction we were currently going. Unfortunately I didn’t realize we had come down a 1-way street and couldn’t go back the way we came. I almost braved it and went the wrong way down the (very wide) 1 way street because I was terrified of getting lost in a really bad part of town. Luckily the street joined up with a familiar one and we tried again, realizing the place must have been right at the corner if we had missed it so fast. It was an unassuming building with bars on the window and a big triangle surrounded by a circle. It looked dead and a tiny bit scary. Allison and I pondered over whether we were brave enough. It was 740pm and it would start in 20 minutes. I commented on how empty it would be and right that second, about 15 different men literally walked up to the door, so we started laughing hysterically because obviously, it was going to be a big meeting. We drove back to the nice area (about 30 seconds away!) and sat there in the car. I called my friend and asked her to look up the triangle/circle to find out if that was 12-step related. Allison and I were like, maybe it’s some devil symbol! (Mostly in jest). Anyway, it turns out it is a 12-step symbol of AA. We told her my friend it was an Al-Anon meeting and she couldn’t find it so we were like oh well whatever, we know it at least said it was an open discussion even if it is AA. We were still nervous because we had only seen males and we thought maybe it was like going to be a gay male AA meeting we were about to crash. Allison and I discussed it and decided we’d at least walk in and ask if it was open to everyone, because we both wanted to get this meeting over with. We have so many other projects going on that trying to find 12-steps has been a big stress. So we went back at 750 and walked in. It honestly looked like there was a bar on the right side. The entire place was dim and dingy and smoky. Glossy spindly chairs with circular maroon vinyl pads were scattered all around the giant room on the left side. Fans blew gently and the lights glowed dimly in the smoke. There was a pool table in one corner. We tentatively walked in and I asked the man sitting there if this was an Al-Anon meeting. He looked puzzled and asked another man, this an Al-Anon meeting? The other man said no, this is an AA meeting. I said oh, is this an open meeting? is it okay that we are here? He said of course, come on in. There were over 20 men sitting around on these chairs, lounging back, chain-smoking, and drinking copious amounts of coffee. We sat down and the meeting began shortly after, with the chain-smoking leader. It was a literature discussion night. He had different men around the room read parts of the book, and then share their own feelings, and then others could contribute as well.

In all honesty, it ended up being an amazing experience. I was truly astounded at the profound wisdom coming out of the mouths of these men. Their words might have been liberally sprinkled with cursing, but the vocabulary was often advanced and the concepts they grasped were mind-boggling. One man talked about the “high cost of living low”. Another man discussed how being abstinent means, in a reworded way, “YOU CAN’T DO SH**” (he meant it positively). Other men discussed how on their first few drinks, they’d give you their mattress, their house, their car, their last cigarette…but as they kept drinking everybody would become “motherf**kers and sumb**ches”. They talked about how they felt like there was no point in electricity, they’d be fine with just a lighter. They’d talk about how long it took them to realize they had no control over their drinking. They talked about hopelessness and the importance of a spiritual path/higher power. It really felt like it was a bunch of high school students laboriously pouring over Shakespeare, the way they’d point out specific lines in the paragraph they had just read that had called out to them. They’d say things like “I didn’t have any f**king control and the f**king truth was that I didn’t f**king realize it…” etc etc. They’d all hoot with laughter at some of the things people would say, as they recognized themselves in the comments. I’m struggling to remember some of the other things they said because there were so many good points thrown out there that it was kind of like being in those carnival game booths where they blow money into your booth and you try to grab as much as possible and instead end up with almost nothing because you let go of one bill to catch another. I realized these men, men I could easily judge if I saw them on the street, had true insight into things that I had never even thought about. It gave me a lot of respect for these men.

I also liked how they always had to say their name and that they were an alcoholic before they spoke, and that after they finished speaking they said “I’m glad to be here.” When we went around the rooms introducing ourselves, Allison and I did not say we were alcoholics. The leader asked us why we were there and I said, truthfully, I have a family member who is
a recovering alcoholic and I want to learn more about his perspective.”They all nodded appreciatively. I didn’t think it was appropriate to add on that it was a requirement too!

The group lasted exactly an hour and you could really see the group dynamics taking place. People spoke up with their feelings and validated each other. It was a very friendly meeting of men sharing their humble knowledge of knowing what it is like to be powerless. These men were all tough-looking and covered in tattoos, yet they earnestly shared their thoughts. They never looked twice at us as imposters or intruders or anything at all, and I appreciated that as well.

Anyway, this is incredibly long…I’ll probably copy paste some of it for the reaction report I have to write. I just didn’t want to sleep on it because then my emotions and remembrances would be dulled. It was certainly an exciting experience and also one that taught me a lot. Now I can’t wait to hit an Al-Anon meeting, I think I am going to one tomorrow evening.

And always remember…you can’t Cause, Control, or Cure a problem, but you sure can Contribute to it.

No-sew blanket making + Pathology + Random OT day

Picture of the VALPAR assessment I’ll be doing a presentation on with Stephanie.

Multiple people working on same blanket

Diligent Anna with her beautiful blanket
Not so diligent Karen with her not so beautiful blanket, I blame Wal-mart for poor choices.

Look at that technology! Distance learning component is reflected in left tv screen so we are seeing them, Powerpoint is seen by us and them as well. During the motor re-learning presentation by Brooke, Camiell, and Allison.

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Yesterday we made no-sew blankets in our quick-and-dirty occupational therapy media session. You buy a yard or two of two different fleece patterns, lie them on top of each other, and then cut 5-6 inch cuts all around the blanket, an inch apart. You then tie each of the pieces of fringe which consists of one piece of fleece A and one piece of fleece B. It was FUN. I bought my fleece at a Super-Walmart with not many options but I’m totally buying cuter stuff and making Christmas presents out of it. We again discussed how we could use this craft as occupational therapists, and that it could be used with many different populations, be graded in different ways depending on the problem, etc.

Today we had a 2 hour presentation given by fellow students on Motor Relearning, which sounds way better than NDT! Then we had our first Pathology course, which is taken together by all members of the Allied Health college – PT, OT, HIMS, Cytotechnology, etc. We had heard rumors that last year almost everyone failed and so the professor ended up having to give everyone A’s, because it was just made way too hard. So we were scared, but it turns out she has changed it so that the tests are now open-book and take home. This woman is a genius and talked incredibly fast and I took 12 pages of notes, so it is possible that the tests will still be pretty hard. But I have background in cell biology, immunology, etc from my undergrad so I am excited about the challenge. In fact, I just sat here and read through the first two chapters and it kinda felt “safe” because it was the kind of stuff I did in undergrad. Hand me words like “polymorphonuclear leukocyte” and I feel right at home.

THEN we had lunch, at which time I met with fellow student Stephanie to start work on our upcoming VALPAR presentation, which is like a work-assessment where you have to sort 146 chips into 48? categories in a timed session. We decided to make a mini video and how to divide up the rest of the work.

THEN we had a guest speaker on Early Intervention Services, who finished early, so we got to leave early, which was great. Allison and I went and worked out. Now I’m home and showered and going to go to an Al-Anon meeting tonight with Allison. (It’s an open meeting, plus I have a family member in alcohol recovery so I’m excited about maybe going regularly).

THEN I’m going to come home and work on the VALPAR Powerpoint, read some chapters for tomorrow’s classes on early intervention and the occupation of play, organize a few things, and then try to get to bed at a reasonable time! Oh and I want to go through my old medical terminology flashcards to help me with pathology terms like karyorrhexis!

I’m enclosing some pictures of yesterday’s blanket making….later on tonight or possibly tomorrow I’ll do my OT student post!! I gotta do something to get my readers back, my stats have been dropping precipitously.

Pondering being an occupational therapy role model and 12-steps

I had this elaborate plan to do this beautiful Tips for new OT students and include new/old OTS blogs with their links and a blurb. But I'm really tired, I've been on the go all day yet again, tomorrow will also be long, and I desperately need to just go to sleep. Although first I need to write two journal entries, a reaction report about a 12-step meeting I attended tonight, and a few other things. So today's will just be a two-part ramble since that's so much faster than something composed. I'm doing it as my leisure and to get it off my chest, not because I have to. Hence you don't need to scratch your head and wonder why I'm taking the time to write this when I am so busy. I'll try to make sure I do the OT student post soon though!!

I've been thinking a lot lately about both therapeutic use of self as well as being a role model to future patients. Some recent lectures as well as all our Group sessions have caused this recent contemplation. I sometimes get overwhelmed with the responsibility I feel I will have when I am working with patients. Not the basic insurance/scheduling/normal interactions, but the more psychosocial ones. Like how can I help them learn to value themselves if I don't value myself? So I've made some goals for my self. Pretty big ones though. These are like overarching “one day hope to achieve” goals. The sooner the better though, right?

1. Stop being self deprecating
2. Respect others more, even in my private thoughts (not just poker face or nod and smile)
3. Stop being so judgmental about the life choices of others
4. Be more open-minded
5. Learn to give myself more value and worth
6. Try to stop cursing so that no matter what, the worst you get out of me is a Fudge or Dang or something. A potential pediatric therapist can't run around screaming the real F word every time something goes wrong. Maybe I'll adopt a silly phrase like “Oh Jellybean” as my curse word. One girl in my class always says “oh dear!”. The worst thing I've ever heard out of her mouth is “Oh crap” when she spilled sugar all over the counter while making a cake. That's pretty impressive.

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Part II of this ramble

I went to my first 12-step meeting tonight, we have to go to three open meetings for our Group class.
Another girl in my class and I went to Nar-Anon at a local church. I'm not sure if we accidentally crashed a closed meeting (possibly) or if it just like this in general, but it was very awkward. They focused a lot on sharing how the program helped them and how they encourage coming back  and things like that. There were only four older women there. They were very kind and seemed very open, except for one woman there who seemed like she was desperate to share things and didn't feel comfortable with us there. That might have just been us projecting, but she was certainly the only one there that didn't seem so thrilled with our presence. I felt so bad about that. I almost felt like she knew we were “imposters”. We didn't share anything about ourselves but our names but we nodded and everything a lot as they told us stuff. It wasn't like we could suddenly say “Oh by the way, we're just students here to observe the four of you, sorry”. We were supposed to be there just to observe and we were ideally supposed to be observing much larger groups than just 4 so that we could be inconspicuous.  So it was an awkward situation where we felt there was no way to explain or disentangle ourselves gracefully. I did learn a lot from the session though, because the 12-step programs have some really important lessons to teach, regardless of the specific problem. So I did learn a lot, but I truly feel terrible that we possibly caused at least one woman to be unable to share what she needed to share. I also felt terrible they spent time and energy sharing things with us when they really needed to just share with each other. It was a mistake I don't plan to make again, that is for sure. What I learned doesn't make up for the fact I possibly caused others to not make any gains. The others did actually seem to make some self-insights while talking to us though, so maybe we did help a tiny bit, just by being there and being young and giving them mirrors to look into of how they first started their journey and how much farther along they are now.

There is a children's book called The Healing Power of Lucky that my dad let me borrow when I was last home. It's kind of an odd book that was taken out of libraries recently for including the word “scrotum”. It's a very odd story with weird quirks. The thing I remember most involves 12-steps. The little girl has a job to clean up after 12-step meetings but one of the things that really struck me is how she described having to clean up the donuts from the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in preparation for the Overeaters Anonymous meeting, and then clean up the cigarettes from the OA meeting in preparation for the Nicotine Anonymous, etc. Everyone has their own issues and what one group uses as support while going through their 12-step, may be the exact thing another group is trying to avoid. “One man's poison is another man's cure.” Or to be all erudite…” quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum” – what is food to one person may be bitter poison to others.

I recommend the book, by the way.

Anyways. That's what I've been pondering lately as I go through this occupational therapy student journey!!

OMG, PS: we made no sew blankets today using fleece and knotting and it was so cool! I am so excited! All my family/friends are totally getting blankets for Christmas. AHAHAHHAA. Pictures soon.

Life is crazy! Let me throw a few bones out there

hey!

Sorry no posts for a while, I've been exhausted! We have a thousand projects going on right now.

I have heard via e-mail from a lot of incoming or prospective OT students, which has been great. I think my next post will be on “Tips to impress your new OT professors” or something like that. So check back within a day or two, I promise I won't abandon you all!!! I'll also try to update my sidebar with new OTS blogs I've learned about 🙂

Today's schedule (Wednesdays for the next month are by far our easiest, we quit this beautiful Wednesday in early October when groups & media end)

Group 830 to 1030
Work out quickly
Shower & head to local hospital to do rehab database entry volunteer work
Hurry back to campus to go to a media class from 3 to 5pm on how to do a no-sew blanket with fleece! Fun!
Run to be at a Nar-Anon meeting at 545pm (it's an assignment to hit three different 12-steps)
Was going to visit with some friends I hadn't seen in a while but turns out they are busy. That's ok, I am exhausted and have a lot to do with grant proposals and assessment presentations (VALPAR, anyone?) etc, so I'll use the time to catch up on schoolwork.

I'm not dead, but my stat count is.

I guess I won't cry about not having many visitors this weekend, considering it was a holiday weekend. I'm too tired to post tonight but I hope to have some amazingly non-random concise things to share tomorrow. PSYCHE!! You know it's gonna be a random ramble like always. But hey, it's about occupational therapy, so you have to love it.

I'm going to go figure out what I need for tomorrow's day of classes in occupational therapy school (hi Google) and then crawl into bed. Gotta be up in way too few hours.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!! I am sure you all sat down with your new OT Practice and read it thoroughly. I know I did…(cough)

Play therapy memories…I got to see Celia!

I worked with Celia for years. Then her family moved away. I just got a chance to meet up with them today, for the first time in over a year. It was great. More details later, have a lot to do, but wanted to share a picture!