One of my classmates who is doing a rotation at an acute care hospital shared this story with me tonight…

She went to the psych ward of this hospital and was doing an evaluation on a man who was bipolar and had just had a hip replacement. Let's say his name is Lester.

Lester spoke in third person, lived in a group home due to the severity of his bipolar disorder, and always used my classmates (let's call her Amelia), name, in every sentence.

This was what he was telling her, more or less a paraphrase of what she told me on phone about the ice cubes and getting in her face about confirming she didn't think he was um, off.

Lester: LESTER DOES NOT WANT TO GET BETTER, Amelia. LESTER DOES NOT LIKE LIVING THERE, AMELIA. LESTER ONLY GETS THREE ICE CUBES IN HIS GLASS AND LESTER IS ANEMIC, AMELIA. LESTER NEEDS MORE ICE CUBES THAN THAT, AMELIA. Blah blah blah blah  LESTER DOES NOT HAVE PROBLEMS ::getting into Amelia's face:: DOES IT SEEM TO YOU THAT LESTER IS BIPOLAR, AMELIA?!!!!!!!!!

Amelia, straight-faced: No, not at all.

Tomorrow is my last day in the normal clinic – Friday we just do home visits around rural Mississippi. I'm really going to miss my co-workers and (many but not all) kids 🙂 Everyone has been sooo nice to me and I really appreciate it. I STILL plan to do a goodbye party post, but I am waiting until I take pics of the stuff I got. So probably this weekend since the next few days I need to focus on finishing up paperwork!

As of today we are fully caught up on evals/plans of cares [goals] – except for some certain early intervention kids but we don't have the folders right now, so it's out of my control. It's awesome we're caught up on all that though. Tomorrow things need to be signed so it can all be submitted, but whoah, what an accomplishment – we've been behind for 3 months straight!

We had our new OT, Sue, start Monday, and she has been an OT longer than I've been alive. We're all learning a lot from her. She does a lot of hands-on stuff where she manipulates the child's body to help brain and body development, and we're like OOOOOOOOOOOOOH AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH….lol. She's awesome.

This week I've seen some kids for a while to help out, but mostly have worked on paperwork to get things caught up. Still have a LOT to do though tomorrow – hope things don't get too crazy at the clinic since I could really use the entire time to finish up the stuff they'd like!

Tonight I met Allison for pancakes (and to work on our post-fieldwork forms), plus we walked on track a while – it's probably the last time I can see her in Memphis. She'll be around until Friday but tomorrow night I'm babysitting in a semi-emergency situation so I couldn't do it then. My co-workers invited me out too for Thursday night – why is it some nights there is nothing, but other times you get like 3 invites for the same day? LOL

I know I've ranted at times about things over the last 3 months, and I definitely work more than a lot of my classmates, but overall it's been a good experience considering how awesome everyone is. I've definitely learned a lot and have increased confidence, hopefully I can carry that over to this next intimidating rotation of an acute care hospital!

Ooh…I have to tell y'all one story before I go to bed. Coming up.

I worked 830am to 720pm. No breaks with the exception of lunch. Went straight to Kinko's to send off copyright release form for article and computer access forms for new upcoming fieldwork. Tired. It's 830. GOING TO BED. Good night.

My good friend and OTS Brooke Ward has taken on a big challenge this summer. In addition to completing her first Level II fieldwork, she is raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society while training to run a half-marathon. Brooke joined their Team In Training program and has already raised just over $3,000 of the $4,000 that is required of her. Brooke will be running in memory of Lucie Wallace, a physical therapist from Chattanooga, TN that recently lost her battle with leukemia.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/msc/nikesf08/bwardiqvrd

JellyBean, OTS, writes:

Answer: Thanks for your kind words, it's always good to find others with similar passions! And According to AOTA dude Sam GONZALES WITH AN S AT THE END NOT A Z I AM SORRY OKAY SAM?! I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!!!, ahem,  the answer is that you can post onto the Student Listserv…which of course requires being an AOTA member…and if you're going to Conclave, you should be a member because it's cheaper that way!! So it's a win-win! Good luck finding a roomie!

Somebody posted this….might come in handy sometime

“What are some good online games for my 84 year old grandmother?”

http://ask.metafilter.com/99075/My-grandma-likes-to-play-with-the-intnernets

Aww…my friend's poor urban chickens were attacked by raccoons. Only their mean feisty rooster, Karen, made it of the grown-ups (all their grown up girls died), and even he was badly hurt…he is living in a bathtub for a while while he heals…so sad 🙁

http://squirrel-squad.blogspot.com/2008/09/its-really-hard-to-be-farmer.html

Fell asleep 330ish – the caffeine I had at 5pm was mean – so since I had to be up at 630, YAY THREE HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yikes.

I'm going to be like “Today's treatment session is NAP TIME!”

Submitted revisions to OT Practice editor a few hours ago – spent last two hours on collaborative diversity article with Kuma and just submitted a final draft to him; oh it feels beautiful to finally have those not over my head. A glorious feeling. Unfortunately it is 115am and I have to be up by 630am max to stop by clinic in morning to pick up needed items before getting to our meeting place at 815am! So um, I better go to bed since if I'm lucky I'll get around 5 hours of sleep.

Tomorrow I am maybe home before 6pm; will maybe work out; maybe meeting Allison for last minute sensory integration Powerpoint stuff (her inservice is Tuesday), maybe napping; maybe finally doing the blogging on low vision seminar and completing essay for AOTF scholarship; who knows. All I know is, YAY, articles are done, and I'm GOING TO BED!!!!