still searching for OT job in La Jolla CA :)

Well on Thursday night I start my road trip with a friend across the country….with appropriate stops each night, including a stop at the Grand Canyon if all goes as planned, ie no car breakdowns….then a few days each in Las Vegas and Death Valley to celebrate my grandfather's 80th, then to San Diego, then flying overnight to San Francisco area for a day and a half, then back to San Diego…then about 10 days later headed to South America for six weeks! Still need to be working on networking/sending out resumes/searching for an occupational therapist job to start like January 2nd!! Still hoping for peds but I've got a few comments about other places- appreciate it. Sorry so quiet – been busy preparing to move. I always think of things I want to share and then by the time I get to it its all faded away!! Ugh!!! I wish I could get back to rambling!! ahahaha

MISS YOU BLOGGIES!!

hahaha

 

:::::so…….i know now how to clean out a hydrocollator….seeing as how I lost my tiny trigger finger splint in it….I was being careful with the tongs since you had warned me about not losing it,  but it still managed to slip out…I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and my life flashed before my eyes….okay not really but I was like AUGH. So…….I took out all the hot packs and was trying to fish for it….and then trying to decide if I could handle the heat if I plunged my hand in….chose not to, LOL. I was really scared it would like dissolve and ruin the expensive collator.  Luckilly it needed to be cleaned anyway….we dumped it out the back door, then rolled it out the front after cleaning it, to use a hose in front area of building, then brought it back in….of course I got splashed…hahaha….now its plugged back in and hopefully going to be okay….my splint material was just floating peacefully and didn't do any damage or melt or anything…I was so scared. From now on I'll use a real splint pan for anything that requires total submersion. learned my lesson. oopsie doopsie:::::::::::::

Dynasplints, pediatrics, vocational rehab….OT is certainly diverse ;)

I've been doing some coverage in vocational rehabilitation which means a lot of students with varying severities/types of cerebral palsy and spina bifida wanting to learn independent living skills. Working with one student on putting on own socks and shoes with exploration of sock aids, reachers, dressing sticks, foot funnels, loops placed on heels of his shoes, etc etc…. other students needing work on simple meal preparation, laundry, bed-making etc….I'm a little lost on how to help someone with spina bifida drain a pot of pasta for example, need to find out from a more experienced OT!  ALso dealing with a pediatric patient who likes to scratch – ouch. Need to find some good dyspraxia resources, plus info on modified scissors, theraputty, blah blah blah blah 🙂

Hey, one of my more recent discoveries to buy a one dollar turkey baster to have kids work on sucking up/spraying water (in our case, giving SpongeBob a “bath”), helping strengthen their hands! You can also use one of those little nasal sucky things for babies, I forget what they are called….that was a gross description. Anyway. I can't remember if I shared that.

Also, using Bubble Wrap to roll over on the theraball while prone then using their hands to try and stomp on the bubbles….I use large bubble wrap and its surprisingly hard, my kids get frustrated but for stronger kids it might work better.

I also like putting up bizarre sentences that make no sense/no flow, on vertical surfaces, to have my older kids copy down on their horizontal surface….because it makes no sense they can't as easily just keep it in mind so they have to constantly glance up and down….forces them to continuously have to scan and keep track of what they are doing…most of us never think twice about copying something horizontally frmo a vertical surface (ie sitting at our desks copying from the chalkboard) – but for some kids it's tough.

Hmm, been working on exploration of adaptive devices for MS including slip on hand aid, universal cuff, book butler, etc…….trying to get a neurological splint for another patient …a DynaSplint…..my first time working with DynaSplint. I took the Sae-Bo course and really liked it and would have loved to use their Sae-Bo stretch splint, but Sae-Bo makes life really difficult with requiring outside vendors for their stretch splint…..easier to just go with DynaSplint. Sometimes even if one splint is superior, its the customer service and/or ease of accessibility that makes the difference.

I only have SIX days left of work…tomorrow plus 5 days of next week. September 17th is my last week. Next week will include vocational rehabilitation, inpatient, outpatient at two different clinics, a case manager presentation where I'm presenting on basic adaptive equipment/DME used in Inpatient Rehab, a goodbye lunch with one clinic, a goodbye lunch with the other clinic……

I am goign back and forth on being overwhelmed…some days yes some days no. Tonight was so-so, was slightly overwhelmed and tired but tried to stick with it. Got some stuff done although not as much as maybe I would have liked. I just found out today one of my fav peeps from Warm Springs is throwing me a little party this weekend, and a good friend of mine will be driving in for it tomorrow, so I am excited 🙂

La la la…..more later. 🙂 Or not, who knows…

KD

Brunnstrom techniques…I tried at least…

I took a bunch of notes out of my OT for Physical Dysfunction book, on the Brunnstrom section for dealing with stroke. Needed new ideas….I ended up trying most of it with minimal success, but I guess I can't expect miracles after a single session! I am copy/pasting my notes just to share the kind of stuff i looked at – do NOT try any of this stuff without reading up on it on your own as a lot of this is out of context and/or abbreviated!!

as the OT world turns…

I'm reading “A Therapist Goes Home After a Stroke” by Rebecca Dutton, a book about an OT who has two strokes, and what she personally learned from rehab/her own dealings with the stroke. She goes into insane amounts of detail on how to do things one-handed. I have to admit I'm not very visual so I tend to skim some of the details, BUT the two things I have so far come across that I think are immediately helpful are:

1) Cane management – a lot of times (okay, constantly) people drop their canes – they need to be able to figure out how to pick them up off the ground safely, and/or find ways to ensure they don't slide, to help increase level of independence, so they don't have to constantly ask someone to collect their cane for them.

2) Holding things under the armpit of the affected side. This is so obvious and yet I've never worked on it with clients. If they are using a cane then their good hand is taken up. While there are options such as a light messenger bag, etc etc (again, within realms of safety), another option is to teach the clients to adduct their affected shld if they have that ability, so they can carry towels, etc and go to another area.

——–
Lately I've been working on burns, strokes, wrists, shoulders, multiple sclerosis, developmental delay, pediatric traumatic brain injury, etc etc….I know that's not at all person-first or occupation-based the way I phrased it….but I guess I mean the RESEARCH I have been doing lately focuses on those areas. Like I read up on Brunnstrom neurological techniques to find alternative ways to activate extensors of the affected side after stroke….

Blah blah I am delirious. I am packing my head off getting ready for the move to CA. 🙂 And trying to prepare for getting a job in CA, spending time in South America, etc….way too much on my mind, but for now I need to focus on physically packing, as well as preparing all my work stuff so that I don't leave anyone hanging. I only have NINE days of work left!! 5 days in one outpatient satellite clinic, four afternoons in inpatient, several late afternoons in another outpatient, and 3 mornings in vocational rehab. Gotta make sure I get lots of handouts and stuff for my pediatric clients, finish up all the home exercise programs, organize all the files and assessments….

hmm

overwhelmed by packing, shipping, logistics of what is to come! thanks for the helpful comments/e-mails. I've had two recent challenges, one a patient with multiple sclerosis and one a patient with a burned hand. I hope to write more about them ASAP but for now I just wanted to tease you and reach out and say hello. And goodbye. It's 630pm but I'm TOTALLY about to take a nap so that I can get back up and do 4-5 hours of productive packing….if I'm tired I won't do a single thing the entire night. Instead I can sleep now, be productive, then sleep horribly tonight and feel badly tomorrow and thus perpetuate my current cycle that at least is productive….hahahaha

Big news….needing a job in California as an occupational therapist! :)

My big news has arrived. I can finally share as I have given notice to my work. My last day of work here in Warm Springs, and LaGrange, Georgia, is September 17th. Shortly after I am moving back to where my family is – Southern California. More specifically, La Jolla in San Diego County. 🙂 I'll be staying with my mom there a while as I get re-adjusted to life in Cally after TEN YEARS in the South.

My plan is to head to Bogota, Colombia pretty soon to do a Spanish  program of some sort with emphasis on healthcare, and also hopefully volunteer at this landmine foundation that has rehab, with apparently a lot of amputees. Should be very interesting. I plan to be there 6 weeks, staying with a friend who lives there. ANYWAY – that should help me brush up my rusty Spanish enough that I can treat Spanish-speaking patients easier 🙂 A lot of those in CA.

ANYWAY – I don't exactly have a job yet. My dream job would be at the children's hospital, specifically in Special Care (step down neonatal ICU essentially), but I know that's extraordinarily unlikely. Barring that, I'm looking at pediatric settings. I don't think I'm really cut out for adult phys dys, (physical dysfunction) like what I've been doing, unless I could be working underneath the near guidance of a mentor (a la Jan Davis or Linda Roccio or um, I dunno, awesome people like that).

Sooo….I'm HOPING that works out. I've met a lot of really nice people through this blog and I'm hoping someone might recommend me or tell me about a job in the San Diego area (ideally La Jolla!) as an occupational therapist, preferably pediatrics, and preferably with a lot of mentorship!!

I'm hoping sometime in the next year, with all these life changes in the works, I'll be ready to write another article for OT Practice about some of those adventures….(would be my 3rd published piece with them)…

I'm about to hit my one year anniversary as an OT practitioner – September 1st – and it's been quite a year with a lot of interesting experiences, with some agonizing days and other amazing days. I feel VERY confident that I do a good job of making my patients feel loved/cared for/therapeutized (lol) – they all feel like I'm helping them. I don't feel nearly as confident in my actual hands-on skills but I do feel confident I'm improving and doing my best to provide high quality of care.

Anyway, time for bed. Lots of work to do in the next month to prepare for the big move. Any thoughts, suggestions, insights, recommendations, blah blah, on doing a cross-country road trip via I-40, finding a job in San Diego, and going to South America, would all be very much appreciated. I could definitely use the support that your comments provide!! I love you guys!! 🙂 My little bloggitos!!

Looove
Karen

Back from Alaska, now back to OT world…

Hey guys,

Sorry for the huge lack of posting – I was in Norway almost 2 weeks and I was in Alaska on a cruise with my family for a week and just got home Friday, at which time I promptly spent the next two nights up until 4-5 am with my mind racing. : I have some HUGE changes in the works, all coming up in the next few months, that I can't talk about for a few more days/weeks as things get finalized/shared with real world peeps. My mind is frantic trying to deal with all these things.

Plus I'm kind of hitting a low point mentally – right about now is the one year anniversary of me NOT getting my dream job for a variety of sad reasons, some my fault and some not, and the one year anniversary of my life changing dramatically as I transitioned to Georgia, etc. I've now been a occupational therapy practitioner almost one year – September 1st is the anniversary. I know everyone says the first year is the hardest but I get the feeling it will be that way a lot longer, for me, with all my low self-esteem/insecurity issues. I know I know a LOT more than I did a year ago……but still so much to go! I want to be like someone with twenty years of experience, only, tomorrow, lol. AHAHAHAHA.

Alaska was fun just as Norway was fun – now onto the life-changing events about to occur. My emotional energy is pretty tied up right now so my blogging is even less than before, although surprisingly I still get pretty regular comments/questions. Need to answer them soon!

Okay time to get back to unpacking more and preparing for tomorrow. I'm thinking dinner should be an egg white omelet with zucchini, mushroom, squash, and onion, with strawberries and peach for dessert…..what do y'all think? We won't mention my excessive consumption of chocolate earlier in the day. 😡

YAY OT!!!!!!!!!! Time to get creative/prepared for my upcoming week back to work!….let's hope I can go to bed before 5am tonight seeing as how I need to be up around 6am. I think I see sleepy-time medication in my future…

PS: the picture, if it comes through, is me on the L, my dad, and my twin sister on the R, on the cruise ship in Glacier Bay, with a glacier behind us.

quote of the day

I was lamenting to a fellow new OT practitioner about how I still make such stupid mistakes sometime, and she (a hand therapist) responded: “”I know! The other day I took an extensor tendon into passive flexion, what was I thinking??!!!!” ahahahahahahhaa

That cracked me upppp for some reason, lol. I guess because to me hands are like rocket science so its the equivalent of someone saying “I make stupid mistakes too, the other day I was doing this calculus derivative integer molecular formula for curing cancer and I acidentally divided by 0.493 instead of 0.492!!!

sooo behind on blogging

and dealing with comments. I haven't put links up but wanted to copy paste this old comment for help with conquering/handling NBCOT! THANKS JULIE – Hey, are you the one from South Africa that I talked with like, years ago? 🙂

Hi Karen, My friend and I have started a blog primarily aimed at helping US and international OT students with the NBCOT and then what happens after. Our blog is available at http://conqueringthenbcot.blogspot.com/

It would be so so great if you could check it out and place a link to our blog on your website so that it comes up when people search for it. As an international OT, I learnt a lot along the way about the NBCOT process and work visas and licencing and I really want to impart that knowledge to others because I believe there is a need for it. Your blog really helped me and inspired me to start my own.