Week 11, Day 4, Not so bad!

Today involved my car door being fixed and a relatively smooth day in the clinic. Nothing overly exciting.

Today I got my car handle fixed – blessed car handle, oh how I missed your door-opening goodness – and got to ride in my friend’s VIPER. Wow. He confirmed something is wrong with my brakes that were just fixed (they had a visiting mechanic) and on next Thursday morning – my morning off since we work so much on other days – I get the distinct joy of going back to the car place for the 3rd week in a row. Yay. At least the repair should be free.

I also got a check for $500 – which was 3 months worth of mileage reimbursement at 30 cents a mile (HALF of what the IRS allows and much lower than normal) for about 1300+ miles, plus a little extra as a “bonus” to make up for the fact the reimbursement sucked (their therapists at least get paid for driving time which I obviously don’t). Not a thrilling amount considering I’ve had close to $700 in repairs in the last few months while there, and spent several hundred dollars on gas. But oh well, better than nothing I guess.

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I was at the clinic by 115pm and was able to prepare for the kids I would be having – progress notes, billing sheets, and activities – which was great – and did some paperwork. We had several cancellations which was nice as the COTA took my kids if her kids were cancelled, plus the new clinic schedule for today was canceled due to various issues and so my OT Christy was in the clinic and could take several kids as well. I did a lot of “yoga” loosely based on BrainGym today – put a big mat in the office, turned off main lights, turned on fake fish tank, turned on soothing music, and had my kids do the “octopus” (on back, feet and arms in air wiggling), the downward/upward dogs, cobra, tree (hands in air, standing on one foot”, butterflies, an elephant with arms as trunks doing lazy 8s, etc. The kids liked the yoga a lot.

At the end of the day in the sensory room, I threw in a giant bolster into the ball bath like I typically do to make the kids push it out for some heavy proprioceptive work, but this time they started crawling on it, so I got in the ball bath with them for stability purposes and we used it as somewhat of a rolly diving board, except for feet-first only. The two little boys – one with autism and one with a major need to work on social skills – did really well, they loved jumping off the bolster and into the balls, and of course they were using me for stability – they were crawling all over me. The COTA (for child with autism), the speech therapist (a co-treat for the child with autism), and a speech aide (just saying goodbye) were all in the small room with me but not in the ball bath, and started chatting (just for like a minute), and I was like totally engrossed with the two kids, who were completely content playing with the bolster and balls with me, and then they were all like “Thanks for doing our session Karen” aahhahaha…it was pretty fun. We (the COTA and I) also went outside with the fire engine backpack hoses with those same two kids and had them squirt a brick wall (I swear, little boys love anything like that, I think it’s related to the way they pee!!!), I ran inside for chalk and drew circles on the wall and we helped them “wash” off the circles….the COTA had her hands full with the little boy that kept trying to squirt us instead, LOL.

My last kid of the day did not show up so that was nice – parents, I gotta warn you, in most cases, if your kid is the last of the day (especially if the clinic has late hours and the therapists have worked 10 hour+ days), there is a good chance he/she is not getting the best therapy – the therapists are tired after a long day and are much less creative.

Went straight to Allison to work with her on the SI powerpoint and then her little OT sib Hillary showed up to buy some of her books and we chatted for at least an hour, that was fun. Then Allison and I chatted a little bit about treatment activities for vestibular, tactile, proprioceptive senses. Her powerpoint is aimed at teachers and she pointed out her fiancee (a teacher) was like….these things have to be realistic for a teacher to implement with lots of kids. True, true. And we talked about how the main message to the teachers is – these are three senses that are often not looked at closely, but being under or over response to these senses can lead to a lot of behavioral issues due to sensory needs not being met, and that a sensory diet can do wonders – not necessarily this huge ordeal that is a lot of stress/work for a teacher, but just a general knowledge of things, like “deep firm pressure for kids that crave stimulation”, etc…and providing them with ideas for heavy proprioceptive work that all the kids can benefit from to help with hyperactivity, etc etc

Around 915pm I was like um….I had egg beaters with gypsy peppers at noon for my breakfast/lunch (lets just generously say 200 calories total), and I haven’t eaten since, and I’m getting hungry, so if you want me to stay, I need food. So Allison made me a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. LOL aww. Got home around 10pm and my neighbor had just come out and pointed out that gas prices might shoot up tomorrow depending on what Hurricane Ike does, so he hopped in my car and we headed to a gas station, just in case, since I was down to half a tank.

Now it’s past midnight. Tomorrow my OT, the clinic director/speech therapist, and I meet at a McDonalds in MS at 945am, we do one home visit that has two cousins, then we drive on to another small town to do two early intervention evaluations. That place is at least an hour and 15 mins or more from McDonalds, and I’m about 40 mins from McDonalds, so we’re going to be in the car together about 3 hours, and then I’ll be in my car over an hour as well, so lots of car-time!

I hopefully get to meet some OT students tomorrow night that I haven’t seen in a long time, I’m excited. 🙂

My cat is running around howling. His “lion ripple” cut is really looking cute now.

Today was a better day overall…still bummed about fieldwork (especially being told that the patient quota is very low there always and so typically OT students only see a few patients a day, plus it’s almost all ortho, plus my new supervisor is supposedly quite quirky and very very very scheduled which will be a shock to my system after this fieldwork but probably I’ll like it) , but at least the day went way smoother than it could have been.

So….Week 11, Day 4, complete…I can’t believe I am about to start the final week 12!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW, Sam Gonzalez, the AOTA Media Guy, Posted a Video on Facebook of Top Ten Reasons You Should Not Miss Going to Student Conclave….which is taking place in mid-November….it sounds awesome but I def. can’t afford it this time!! But those of you who can afford it, really need to go. 🙂 Because like the video narrator (Megan Doherty, assembly of student delegates chair), said……FREE PENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No seriously….it’s pretty neat and it sounds like it is going to be a lot better even than last year’s. More on that later I guess.

One happy note

Week 11, Day 3, Still Having a Sucky Week

Quote of day:
Six year old boy: Want to see my nipple? ::pulls up shirt to show belly-button::

Turns out he meant navel.
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I am feeling about ready to explode right now. This has been the suckiest week overall, that I’ve had, in quite a while. I have tears in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks writing this because I am overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed with my current OT student fieldwork, overwhelmed with future fieldwork, overwhelmed with personal life. I feel completely maxed out and at my limits in all ways.

I’m going to write about my day, therapeutically, to flow it out my fingers and out of my brain, then go into rant mode I guess.

Today at work was actually relatively calm minus a scramble this morning to pick up some stuff at new clinic. We saw our cute little baby that is blind, then saw two brothers with autism (person first language)…I took the younger one to the room with the lava lamp and fish tank, turned off the lights, and sat with them in the ball pit, gently and slowly covering his body with balls…he liked it. At lunch time, at this tiny restaurant on the square of this small rural town, we sat at a table close to a mom with a kid, who, seeing our scrubs, asked if we worked for a clinic because her sugar was low…then we all got to chatting about pediatricians since my OT supervisor is looking for a new one, and then a mom at another table joined in, so we were having this conversation about kids/pediatricians with these strangers, and then (shushed but audible) diarrhea talk came into play – not by me -, and there were men at a nearby table who were like ?!!! It was really funny.

We went and saw our little congested blind/deaf baby who lives in the projects…things are not going well for this family or baby, we’ve seen a decline…the mom and baby were asleep when we got there. The room was dark and the light bulbs were still out, and it smelled like smoke…so we took the baby outside. We (my OT, me, and speech aide) worked with the baby on a small mat we put under a tree for shade, for the entire hour.

Our next kid didn’t work out so I worked on mileage. Our final kid showed up and I did some gross motor ball work with him, then my OT Christy took him for table-top stuff so I could finish working on mileage (don’t worry, it’s very rare something like this happens), and then I finished up the session with some gross motor…he has severe behavioral issues, low frustration tolerance, etc…he needed some firm re-direction but was okay during session, but when it was time to go find mom and be with her, he quickly melted down…we see this a lot…a kid knows he/she can misbehave in presence of lax parents, and so the kid behaves during session with some verbal cuing and time-out and redirection, but then reallllly acts up in presence of parent. He screamed and cried for a long time as Christy spoke to the mom…I had started the talk with the mom, and when the kid freaked out, I started dealing with it, but Christy is a PRO with that stuff, so she came out (she had been standing by listening), and dealt with it way better than I could have, and with more knowledge under her belt too LOL.

Then we headed back around 440pm – the kid was technically done way earlier than that, but dealing with the temper tantrums (instead of letting them walk out with him screaming and no parent education), took a while.

I went back to the clinic because it’s on way home and because I wanted to drop off billing sheets and mileage and find out my schedule for tomorrow so I’d feel a little more prepared for the chaos that will ultimately reign. Ended up not leaving until 630pm because the director wanted to show me something, mileage took forever to fully calculate (over 1,300 miles this last few months for work…..not counting the 30ish miles round-trip I make every day to the clinic – since mileage doesn’t start until I hit the clinic). And then writing up some things our awesome COTA could do to help us out paperwork wise because of a gap in her morning schedule. I know it was my choice to stop by clinic so I can’t complain, but my sanity was at stake. 🙂

Stopped at Allison’s on way home to say hello and work a tiny bit on some OT stuff..my wireless wouldn’t work there though and I was kind of antsy to get Internet access because of all the fieldwork stuff etc going on – not to mention being tired and stressed – so I didn’t stay long

Ever since I got home around 8pmish? I’ve been chilling out with Lester and chatting online with real life friends on AIM, Facebook, and Gmail talk…have no energy to want to do anything else…don’t want to deal with e-mails or phone calls or texts or anything.

Ok time to rant I guess…

Fieldwork: Not yet ready to discuss publicly, suffice to say that although I’ve got placements, I’m still bummed that all three of my fieldworks are completely different than what I wanted/expected. I had good experiences on this one, am sure next two will be awesome in their own way, blah blah blah, but still disappointed.

Current fieldwork: I love all my co-workers, some more than others, but have fun with all of them…but don’t love the chaos and the long hours and the stress. It will be better for future students because they won’t be there in the midst of expansion like I was, while short an OT, while also expanding into early intervention, etc etc. Tomorrow afternoon promises to be pretty stressful starting at around 3pm as kids get out of school, at times there will be four kids at once for me and the COTA, four kids that do not match well…at 530 we have a shy little girl in like first grade, a crying little 3 year old boy, and two prickly kids that have behavioral issues and anger quickly. I have the two prickly kids, she has the little boy and older little girl. Not a good session for anyone in my opinion. Maybe a kid won’t show up, maybe we’ll have an amazing breakthrough. Realistically though, it just means chaotic and stressful sessions. So from 3pm to 7pm it will be crazy.

Personal life: Way too much going on for me to handle on top of all the work stress. It is impossible to say there is a thing as too many friends, because it is such a blessing, but it is possible to say that it can be overwhelming, especially at times like this when I feel so thinly stretched and have nothing to offer. I try to do what I can and what I think I can handle stress-wise, but I feel like I have a “waiting list” of unhappy friends waiting for their turn.

So, here is my entreaty to friends right now: I’m stressed out. I’m exhausted. I’m busy. If you’ve contacted me and now feel guilty, don’t. You are a friend reaching out. I appreciate it. I always love being contacted, and save such things to respond to when I get a chance. But please please please don’t give me a hard time about not responding in a timely manner (even in jest), and/or please don’t feel bad or ignored, if I don’t respond for a week or so. I’m very behind on phone call messages, texts, e-mails on multiple accounts, Facebook, etc. I’m behind on articles due, I’m behind on paperwork due, I’m behind on bills, grocery shopping, and everything else you can imagine as well. So…the best way to be a friend right now is to be patient, please. My last day of this fieldwork is September 19th. I have a lot to do in the week before the next fieldwork starts, and that includes catching up on e-mails and such….so…yeah.

Ok…I’m still bummed out and stressed, but at least I feel a little calmer after typing out this massive amount of stuff. Lester is meowing at me and running around screaming…I’m going to go find something for dinner (yes, it’s 1030pm), and to give him some brushing…maybe his sensory needs will subsequently be met and he’ll chill out. I need to chill out too. I sense Klonopin in my immediate future.

By the way, I do think OVERALL, things are going okay and I’ll be okay…I just need to get through the ne
xt few weeks. Send good vibes.

NOT A COOL DAY AT ALL

Lester in up-close black-and-white beauty….

I had to include some Lester pics to cheer me up.
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Joke of day:

Me: Knock knock
9 year old with PDD-NOS (ie, severe developmental delay): Who’s there?
Me: The Interrupting Cow
Him: I HATE cows!

Today sucked a lot, most specifically at the end of the day, and then more specifically, when being told my upcoming fieldwork fell through….

Today was spent in normal clinic…from 830am to 720pm. Saw a little boy at 9am that shivered violently, had to turn down air/find him an adult shirt…saw a cute little girl that told me she had a baby in her stomach. I asked her where it came from and she said, in a duh voice, “from my stomach”. LOL. We worked on step-by-step drawings of Gary the Snail…the kids LOVE my giant blow-up Gary (a very old present).

Paperwork, paperwork. Did a home visit with kid whose mom was distraught about vaccination excemption paperwork being rejected…is big on specific diets/supplements for all her autistic spectrum kids.

Came back. Saw young girl and did Care-Bear puzzle with her…edge pieces in one box, wibble-wobbles in the other…kids always know immediately what I mean when I say wibble-wobbles…lol. Unfortunately the puzzle was hard for me, I have bad issues with puzzles! Good thing she was good at it! We also worked on drawing inferences with speech cards…like I showed her a card and she guessed it was a worm…really it was a mouse tail..you could see a mouse hole and cheese. And worked on “absurdities”…like the cow that says meow, the girl who eats her soup with a shovel, etc. the speech people have lots of great decks of cards that I like to borrow for OT.

Then it became craziness time as school lets out…we had me, OT, and COTA working, but had four kids or more at times…all trying to juggle them…some kids coming 40 minutes late, other kids not coming, other kids having speech co-treats, etc…played a lot of Candyland today and did some great work on attention span, turn-taking, winner/loser, social skills, calmness, etc.

A LOT of stress with scheduling/paperwork…I keep meaning to do some of it at home, but I already work over-time as it is…frankly by the time I get home I’m so stressed out and exhausted, that I just can’t fathom doing it.

One issue we are having is with mileage reimbursement/fairness…they reimburse at 30 cents, which is about 50% of what IRS counts for reimbursement…yet they get reimbursed for mileage by the early intervention program at a higher rate…so technically profiting off mileage of therapist cars…they say because they pay for drive-time that it’s okay…well that may be true, but guess what, I’m not paid…so it seems fair I should be reimbursed closer to what they get reimbursed so they aren’t profiting off my car (which has had over $600 in repairs since starting there), since I’m free labor. Ugh.

ANYWAY…I got off at 720pm stressed out after hours of nonstop chaos, and then I have two messages on my cell from the fieldwork coordinator telling me to call her…which I know means bad news. She informed me my upcoming fieldwork – the one starting September 29th – has fallen through as the contract was just received, wasn’t a UT one, and has to go through litigation, so is months away from finalized. She made it clear the problem was on the side of the hospital, not my program’s……although I don’t understand the minutia of why, even though they’ve been working on this contract for at least 4 months, that this has happened. So I’m not pointing fingers or playing a blame game…writing out this rant is not to fuss at anybody…but to say I’m really frustrated that all three of my fieldworks have fallen through, regardless of whose fault it is.

I cried a little – called classmate Allison to see if we were meeting up to walk and to give her the news – a few minutes later as I walked in the door, Kerri called to ask if she could bring me cookies…she brought over several types of bakeable cookies, some vanilla soymilk and her cat…we made a few of all 3 types….Oxford her cat was petrified of Lester (he was all like socially awkward excessively friendly kitty, hey what up, and she was like What the Hell Get Away From Me You Freak)…so she and I sat in the doorway between the living room and bedroom and ate cookies and milk and hung out,keeping Lester from trying to give her unwanted attention. She LOVED his haircut. 🙂 She hung out until a little before 10pmish, I really appreciated her distraction and of course cookies. Very nice. I sent her home with a big bunch of carrots, some gypsy peppers, a blue vase she liked that I never use, and the rest of the unbaked cookies, so I guess we both got something out of it, LOL.

Okay back to ranting about fieldwork….

This first one has been a good experience, but very excessively stressful with long hours, and I was looking forward to this next one being much more straight forward…not as much chaos, not as many hours, etc…plus I kind of knew the upcoming supervisor and liked her, had already established contact with her, already knew my schedule and it was glorious, etc. Ugh.

Here was the original plan that was in place for a long, long time…Rotation 1 and 3 SPECIFICALLY chosen for their stability…
Rotation 1: Physical Dysfunction, Specific Rehab Hospital
Rotation 2: Vestibular Specialty, San Diego
Rotation 3: Psychosocial, VA

Then, because things fell through a month before starting, with the contract for rotation 1 (due to somehow it not being realized the contract had expired), it became:
1. Current pediatric site I’ve been at.
2. Specific Rehab Hospital Moved Up, San Diego (my hometown) down the drain
3. Psychosocial, VA

Then, the third one fell through (for legitimate reasons – my future supervisor’s legs were amputated!!), and it became
1. Current ped site
2. Specific Rehab Hospital
3. Somewhere, who knows where, but probably in Nashville at this point – psychosocials are hard to place.

Then, the second one just fell through, so now it is
1. Peds Site – 3 months
2. Who knows where – 3 months
3. Who knows where – 3 months

NOT OKAY! NOT COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOT COOL!!!!!!
NOT NOT COOL!
PS: If you’ve contacted me recently and I haven’t responded, I repeat, this week has NOT BEEN COOL! So give it a while please!!!!!!!
NOT COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The fieldwork coordinator gave me a few options over the phone…and included Little rock AR and a few other far away places…which I know she is just trying to be thorough…but I almost choked. I was like…I’m about to be sent off for my last one for 3 months…this next one is in a few weeks…I can’t just get up and move away for six months, to two different places, money-wise, time-wise, stress-wise, life-wise, etc…really stressed me out. 3 months is bad enough, but to make it six, with just a few weeks notice, NOT OKAY!!!!!! AUGH!!!!!!!! NOT COOL!!!!!!!!!!!

I sent her a list of my top three choices – it includes two acute hospitals – one in Northern Memphis, one in Missisippi- and then
also – the dreaded – ugh – local chain of rehab hospitals that I absolutely DESPISE…but I really want to stay in town, especially if I have to leave for 3 months in January. She is going to contact places tomorrow, hopefully it will all work out…but I’m feeling pretty bummed and sad right now to have had all 3 fieldworks fall apart..repeatedly…I feel like crying again after writing this all up. Yeah yeah, it will all work out, it will all work out, it will all work out…I think I can I think I can I think I can….

OKay. I’m going to bed now. It’s almost 1am. Did I MENTION NOT COOL?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good news is…tomorrow, if our schedule stays the way it currently is, tomorrow won’t be too horrible of a day…hopefully to make up for the hideous Monday/Tuesday.

Lester the Lion Kitty Gets Groomed Very Poorly :(

This really isn’t OT-related, although we could say I’m working on Lester’s ADLs, specifically grooming, and doing a crappy, crappy job of it. I love me some Lester. This video was made late Saturday night, and the black dress I was wearing still has the cat fur to prove it. 🙁

Watching this cheered me up slightly because what can I say, I’m crazy. Ok bedtime.

Week 11, Day 1, Down the Drain, Thank Goodnessye

craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy

Article in local newsletter re: Feeding group for picky eaters – partially run by OT – at local hospital

good night for reals

Week 10, Day 5, of Pediatric Level II Fieldwork