COULD THIS BE A POST? By a new occupational therapist?

Well this is a lunch blogging entry. I decided I didn't have enough time to run to the gas station and to buy a frozen pie crust, so I'll quickly blog, only take a 30 minute lunch so I can get out of here earlier! I'm having to get used to the whole getting-paid-to-work-exactly-40 hours thing….have to juggle time! It's not the end of the world to get overtime, but I'd much rather just work exactly 40 hours because um, well, even fun work is work! Considering the majority of people I now interact with are either physical speech or occupational therapists and/or interns in those fields, there is a lot of shop talk outside work anyway. My speech therapy roomie and I talk a lot about cognitive therapy like when working on executive function. We share some patients who need work on high level skills so it's great to bounce ideas off each other.

I am trying hard to be a good and knowledgeable therapist – I've lately learned more about basic splints, and I am in LOOOOOVE with this book called Therapeutic Exercises, written by PTs, and I think it should be a mandatory book. LOVE it. For phys dys that is. Not that phys dys is my love. But I have a passion to learn even if it's not my love since I want my patients to have highest quality care possible!

The other day I had to quickly measure like a bazillion big, medium, and little joints of BUE with goniometers of varying sizes….including all the finger joints. I was a little frazzled. lol.
I do get overwhelmed some days, feeling like I don't know enough or have too much on my plate, but really I don't….just don't like not feeling like I have control and know everything. I study a lot on the diagnoses my patients have, and I am a big fan of educational hand-outs even though I know a lot of people don't read them. I'm NOT a big fan of home exercise programs – HEP – although I do give them, with instruction to incorporate into day (ie lean over kitchen counter to do shoulder pendulum exercises while waiting for oven to pre-heat).

Rural Georgia is cracking me up…..one of the techs calls me Kay-ar-en and it's not to be funny, she just has a thick accent. I love it. And I bring things like hummus or dried mangos with chile and they are like WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT OMG and I am like AHAHAHAHAHA wow.

Karma just got me cuz I just lost a chip in a sea of hummus. I mourn thee little chip. Rest in soggy peace.

I went to lagrange symphony orchestra yesterday – very fun.

Enjoying Georgia, enjoying job, but wish I could start feeling like a therapist and not a student or imposter! But I'm getting there. Slowly.
Sorry for lack of posts lately – internet so slow in Warm Springs that I rarely get on. This is a rare treat to post. lol.

So……..more soon I hope.
PS yeah I need to change my header since i'm no longer a student! :O