I have more stuff to post/share and I STILL haven't gotten to Facebook because I suck, but I'm just going to do the quick version of today – and wait on yesterday – cuz I'm about to fall asleep

Today was awesome because I got to sleep in ridiculously late (although forgot to take my meds and have had a headache all night because of it)…and then I had my little girl with visual perceptual issues….I got several smiles out of her today…she is so cute. We worked some on her writing her address, and her handwriting is sooo atrocious, LOL…we also did some worksheets on VP from edhelper.com, some of the C D B book, a new Peeps puzzle, etc…

Almost every kid in the world cancelled today which is crazy and rarely happens – so I only had one other kid – one I haven't seen before – a little boy who needs a lot of basic help and probably has autism – Christy my OT says he has good days and bad days, and apparently i got him on a good day, because after a few minutes in the ball pit and with the tunnel, I managed to keep him strapped in at the table for the next like 40 minutes, with the busy bugs – we walked them back and forth on the table a while talking about colors, then we would put them away, tell them good night and turn off the light…wait a minute or two, say good morning, turn on the light, dump them out…..repeat…lol…then we added in some variation where I dumped the bugs out in the night and then we'd turn on the lights and find them out of bed, put them in time-out for one minute, etc. LOL….I was in a sing-ey mood and he seemed to like it so I would sing things like “Grasshopper jumps in the air, grasshopper jumps into your hair…..ahahahhaha. Who wants to sponsor my voice lessons so I stop shattering eardrums?!!!

Then Haley, the really way wonderful speech aid who will kick graduate school butt, came in for co-treat, and we worked with him on finding certain colored bugs and then certain colored “food” for the bugs, to work on coloring and counting and stuff…she is awesome. She just Facebooked me to tell me to put on more pictures but the problem is that I can't include kid's faces – I think I may start taking two types of pictures – not just website-worthy-picture-form-release worthy ones, but also blog-worthy ones from the back or sides so that the kid isn't recognizable but the activity is. :O

The only other kid we saw was a kid who has a lot of difficulty with self-expression and emotions labelling, so really his OT session involves a lot of psychology…my OT did an art therapy session with him where she would draw a line then he had to make something of it, taking turns, and then at the end they labelled it as well as discussed things about it…she wanted to work on SCARY things with him and to discuss what is scary and how to deal with it, and we ended up with a  list of things that are scary for me, Christy, and him (mine included loose teeth, storms, water, and rollercoasters)….it was a neat session to watch as Christy extracted things from him. I tried to lay low in this session, at least for the first part, so that I would not be a distraction.

So basically instead of 9 kids we only had THREE…which is crazy. Nice though too, although spread out enough that I still didn't get to leave early really 🙁 Oh well LOL

Then I went to the grocery store, made dinner, and have been sitting around at home ever since…cleaning, organizing, chilling…very tired. ….I bought some chicken pieces, some reduced-price-old (?) rosemary potato bread, then shredded up the chicken andbread, crushed in some baked lays potato chips, and sprinkled some corn on top…it was yum…a chicken-corn-chips-bread collage….too bad bread doesn't start with a C or that would be an awesome name. I guess I could lie and call it crust so I could have chicken-corns-chips-crust-collages, or 5C for short. Just kidding, I'm delirious. ANYWAY….I usually eat peanut butter crackers, frozen cherries, or some other random assortment of food for dinner, if left to my own devices, so having real food – including protein – is like miraculous. Woot woot.

Okay anyway. I'm TIRED. Will blog on Wednesday + newest emails + Facebook stuff later…plus I so badly want to catch up on OT blogs and share a bunch, and well, ugh, there is not enough hours in a day.

Friday makes FOUR weeks….1/3 of the way through first fieldwork…which is crazy.

Tomorrow we start with a home visit, then I have three hours of kids, from 1030 to 130…well really Christy is scheduled for those kids but that means they are mine….I hope the last kid doesn't show up, I have not heard of him before but I hear he usually doesn't show up!! The home visit kid and the first clinic kid I know, but the second kid I've only heard the name of…. Then I meet a friend around 3ish and then I hang with Kerri & Brent and then I might be joining some of the MOT Class of 2009 for an outing….it starts with the South Main trolley tours of downtown memphis but we'll see, I may be too tired for that, and may just join them for seeing a movie at the drive-in, since I've never gone before!!

This weekend I want to hit the Alzheimer's Daycare center on Saturday for a few hours to chill with old people, hit LeBonheur to hold babies a few hours on Sunday, do some belly-dancing practice, and see a ton of friends. Plus try and rest some in preparation for another week. Oh, and I need to go with my landlord to go pick up some stuff. And my landlord's friend is going to fix my leaking air conditioner, etc. Yay. Woot. Okay. Did I mention I'm going to sleep. Yeah. Good night luviepoos. Don't let the busy bad bed bugs bite. Alliteration is awesome.

One last non-OT post for the night. It's soo cute, I want baby meeses in my sprinklers!!!

http://www.maniacworld.com/twin-baby-moose-in-sprinkler.html

From Runner's World Magazine:

Oscar Pistorius is a double amputee from South Africa who wanted to be in the Olympics but the IAAF says his prosthetic legs give him an advantage….well maybe in some ways (like independent studies showed he has to expend less energy overall) but the pain tolerance needed to run on those legs, has to be STAGGERING….I personally think the DISadvantages of running with prosthetic legs are enough that it counter-attacks any advantages, but I dunno. Just thought it was interesting to think about…

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Random observation:

I picked up a sample of Chewy Tubes – “Oral Motor Device to develop biting” – while at AOTA conference. The other day the SLP (speech therapist) put some rice cereal on it to allow our little baby that is deaf/blind, start working on real food, as well as lose some of her oral motor defensiveness. It was neat to watch the baby experiment with this pliable thing in her mouth. She tolerated it very well.

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I have a book I stole from Mom called “C D B” that is really more geared at adults, but I think it can be helpful in OT, and I in fact used it with my visual perceptual girl today, on some of the easier pieces…just to see how quickly she could recognize/read the letters. I even got a few smiles from her 🙂 It's a book using just major letters – like, for example, the first page shows a person looking at a bumble bee, saying,

C D B – D B S A B-Z B.

Here is my friend's country version of C D B, lol, he had to read it to me with a thick accent the other day and I already forget how to interpret some of it:
C M R DUX
M 8 DUX
M R 2 DUX
C M R WANGS
L I 8
M R 2 DUX

——
Animalia is another awesome book for visual perception but it's again more geared at older kids or adults….each page has its own letter of the alphabet, and the pages are breathtakingly done, filled with HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of items starting with that letter…it ranges from the basics – like a butterfly for B – to very obscure items starting with B that only a really smart person would even know the name of. It's pretty awesome….I love it.

Well except in the sense that sometimes part of your therapy may include getting a kid to laugh and not be so shy, in which case jokes are a good thing, not that these are good ones for a kid, but you get my point, or maybe you don't.

I got these from Reader's Digest and they all struck me as exceptionally funny so I'm sharing….

“I have CDO. It's like OCD but with the letters in alphabetical order, like they're supposed to be.”

Q: What did the airhead name her pet zebra?      (maybe the airhead has visual perceptual issues)
A: Spot

Q: How many ameobas does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, no two! No, four, no eight…

Cartoon: A hermit crab with no shell to a hermit crab with a shell, on a beach littered with crab shells: “I forgot where I parked.”

AHAHAHAHA

Ok time for my OT-related posts then bed-time. Early night. Tired.

Too tired to blog. Going to bed. But notes to self so can pick up tomorrow.

830am – 915 to clinic…saw 1, 2, 3 + baby
1, 2, 3 kid counting – boy
House/groceries/colors/restaurant/at service , after lunch – boy + bro
Communication breakdowns = in general lol
hip rotation/knee hyperextension – girl
meeting other karen , lunch

eval – come to house, borrow truck – balls – visual perception – cherry bomb x 3 – done 530pm – need to write notes though for 1.5 days now AUGH – – friends house for dinner and kerri/brent's, med stuff, stories hmm, tomorrow until 1pm, chiro shearing forces lol, groceries, blah blah blah blah whatev

Ok…I responded to the girl from Argentina, and the guy from India. I responded to the two passionate future potential OTs asking to do a phone call this weekend instead of spend hours writing e-mails. I posted and/or responded to a bunch of great comments/helpful tips left by people. I'm still working on the cultural diversity/disability as form of diversity paper with Kuma, and am working on final um, what's the word, revisions, to the OT Practice Article…I also want to check out the newest ADVANCE e-newsletter (I want to get it in paper but so far I haven't even though I thought I signed up, hmmm), I sadly deleted a bunch of gero special interest list-servs without reading in-depth just because of time priority although it hurts me to do so, and now I just need to respond to one more OT student and then I'm DONE. Phew. It's almost midnight, I'm going to bed!!!!!!!!

PS: I love getting e-mails, I'm just slow to respond and end up having to write short responses, I am sorry….
PS2: Facebook responses will be tomorrow's much easier goal 🙂

Anybody want to help me answer this? This girl sounds great 🙂

http://vcuotstudent.blogspot.com/….love it. LOL

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Gross Cadaver Anatomy

We are about 2/3rds of the way through our 6 week intensive cadaver anatomy course. It is 5 credits and jammed packed with so much information. We were recently joined by the physical therapy students after our first test. It is harder with them because they are not as inviting, and they definitely are holding true to the pt-ot rivalry, even early on (I won't rant about them any longer).

Our first unit covered the thorax, the neck, the face, the head, the cranium, the abdomen, the abdominal contents and the posterior wall. I thought that was a lot of information but it is no where near compared to the amount we have to study right now. My suggestion is the go to the lab when you can, in reasonable increments. Don't spend hour upon hours in there because you will definitely go crazy. A little bit a day is the easiest way to do it without being really overwhelmed.

The unit we are on and about to take a test on this next Monday is the back and the upper extremity. This unit is way more intensive and many of us are at our braking points. There are so many origins, insertions, innervations, and functions to memorize it is nearly impossible in the short time that we have. This unit has really been a struggle and most classes in the past have done the worst grade wise on it. I just want it to be over with so we can move on to the lower extremity, which will be the last and final area we touch.