...which would explain the long radio silence. Classes began a week ago Monday. I would have caught up over Labor Day, but got sucked into doing a giant work project that ensured I had not one free second to crack open a book all weekend.
My alarm now goes off at 5:30 AM. This results in wearing a headlamp to walk the dogs in the morning before class (when it is pitch black out) and afternoons where I either take a nap or sit like an inert lump of tapioca mainlining episodes of Scrubs on the computer.
I am taking three classes: Biological Structure and Function, which is basically A&P, but they didn't want to call it that for some reason, Medical Terminology, and Human Growth and Development for Health Professionals, which is way too long, ergo that class shall henceforth be known as Lifespan.
A&P is a classic auditorium class with 280 students, and yet it manages to not only not suck, but actually be good. I am impressed with just how chirpy and sunny our instructor can manage to be at the crack of dawn. And she even takes questions while she's lecturing, which is not so simple when there are more people in your class than in most airliners. There are free supplemental sessions and on-line this and that--all the bells and whistles! And of course there is lab. Lab met for the first time today. My lab TA is this guy with an impenetrable Indian accent. He talks like he has a tennis ball stuck halfway down his throat. His name is unpronounceable, and when he said it and I asked him how to spell it, he just said, "It's on the syllabus." He's actually a vet by training. My new lab partner, whom I picked based on the fact that she was sitting next to me and seemed to basically have it together, agreed we'll come earlier next week so we can sit closer to the front, in the hope that we'll better understand what this guy is saying. He mispronounces some of the anatomical names, which is sort of ridiculous, but whatever.
I have no complaints about Medical Terminology. It's an on-line class, and although I think we technically have an instructor, he or she does not really have anything to do. We have on-line pretests and tests that we take when we feel like we're ready and work through the exercises in the book at our own pace. Pretty straightforward.
Lifespan was a nasty surprise. It's another huge class with 120 people in it, and the contrast between this class and A&P could not be more crass. The instructor is an older lady who copies sentences, and often entire paragraphs, word-for-word from the textbook, slaps them up on PowerPoint slides, and reads them. She occasionally injects comments, but 98% of class time is her voice reading off the slides. To keep myself from falling asleep, I highlight the words in the textbook as she reads them. There are pages in my text that are 90% highlighted. We also have to use this stupid thing called a clicker. It's like those little keypads they use on the Ask the Audience part of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" The teacher puts up a multiple choice question and you have to answer it using the clicker. She did one yesterday, and by the time I pulled my unit out and had it ready to operate, she had closed the polling and my answer didn't count. And yes, I went up and bitched about it after class because these questions are part of our grade. The instructor seems like a nice enough person, but her instructional "style" is coma-inducing. The material is pretty dry to begin with, and she's not helping matters. I can only hope it gets better once we get out of the stupid theory crap that every field seems to front-load its textbooks with and into actual, y'know, development stages.
Life has pretty much shrunk to sleeping (not nearly enough), walking to and from class listening to lectures on my headphones (I tape all my lectures), actually attending class, walking dogs, procrastinating about doing homework, and actually doing homework. Other less-urgent items like cleaning, laundry, cooking, and the like have been almost wholly ignored. So far, I am always a step behind where I would like to be, and sometimes a step behind where I genuinely need to be.
Fortunately, I have a little more time before my first exams.
Showing posts with label playing catch-up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label playing catch-up. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Catching Up, Part 1
I hate doing these kinds of posts where it's basically a laundry list of what I've been up to, but things have been so dang crazy around here! Rmph!
So last week I had another observapalooza, this one with Molly. We got to see three clients. (I have changed the details as always, never fear...) Client #1 had a TBI (traumatic brain injury) due to an MVA (motor vehicle accident) more than a decade ago, apparently had a Glasgow score of 4 or 5 (which is very low, very bad, and connotes a very poor prognosis), and is really in amazingly good shape, all things considered. She speaks quickly, which is very unusual for someone with a TBI, and has to be told to speak more slowly and loudly. Since I had not heard her history, Molly asked her to tell me about her accident, which she did. It made the little hairs stand up on the back of my neck....another one for the "just slap me if I complain about anything" file.
We were working mostly on her trigger finger, a pointer finger that was stuck in flexion. Molly taped it with kinesio tape and had the client pick up some dice of various sizes and move them around, and then the client pulled out her clarinet and played a little bit. It's a terrific therapeutic activity because it requires you to hold your trunk upright, breathe deeply from the diaphragm, focus the breath into the instrument, and move the fingers over the holes and stops, including that pesky pointer finger. (The client called it "ornery," which made me laugh.)
All in all, the client was very appropriate in her emotions and speech, although she apparently still has some fairly major memory deficits (she still forgets she has a clarinet unless she leaves it in plain sight). Her one quirk, which I found adorable and endearing, was that she kept throwing in little phrases in Italian. She spent a year as an exchange student in Italy less than two years before her accident and spoke Italian pretty well. She loved the experience, and even the accident and TBI could not knock the Italian out of her. Instead of saying "thank you," most of the time she said "grazie" instead. Same thing for "you're welcome," "hello," and "goodbye," as well as a few other affectionate phrases ("I'm so proud of you," "You're very nice," etc.). It was very cute, I thought.
Our second client was the lovely Janet, Molly's ALS client. More kinesio tape for Janet's own ornery stuck-in-flexion pointer finger, discussion of an ALS support group that Molly was scouting out for Janet, and some issues with emotional lability (Janet was very perplexed that she could go from happy to crying and back again at the drop of a hat, and Molly reassured her that this is actually pretty common with ALS and does have a biological origin). And oh yes, the bed maker. Janet had ordered this gadget because she was having trouble tucking the sheets under on her mother's bed. She didn't want to leave them hanging because she was afraid that her mother, who is quite elderly, would trip on them and fall. So Janet, Molly, Janet's sister-in-law who was up visiting from Georgia, and I all crowded around the bed to try out this wondrous-sounding device. Well. It might have worked if the mattress weren't made out of lead bars. Seriously, it was quite possibly the heaviest mattress I have ever struggled with, and it was only a full-size bed! Anyway, Molly tried it a few different ways and finally decided sitting in a chair was the easiest way to use it, but she really had to lean into it and still could barely get the sheets tucked. Janet tried and made an I-give-up face after about ten seconds. Her sister-in-law gave it a whirl and was equally defeated. Janet pointed authoritatively at me, and I too gave it a shot. I did manage to get it to work, but I sounded like Hulk Hogan in the WWF World Championships. The noises that came out of me were anything but ladylike, and everyone had a good laugh over it before we sadly put the bed maker back in its box to return for a refund.
Client #3 was a gentleman who was actually more or less housebound and on oxygen. He had a long list of medical issues, most of which had been exacerbated by a stroke that had left him in a nursing home for months. He had been thrilled to finally come back home and even more thrilled when Molly started working with him about six weeks prior. Understandably, the man had been quite depressed at his feelings of neediness and helplessness. Molly gave him a whole series of strengthening exercises that he could do right in his bed, and as I watched, she had him work on rolling himself over so that his legs hung off the side of the bed, first on one side, and then the other. Then she even had him do it without using his arms to pull himself over. The man was so amazed and happy when he found that he could do it with just his core and lower extremities! It sounds like a small thing, but being able to get yourself to a seated position over the edge of the bed makes it so much easier to get into a wheelchair! And likewise, when you transfer out of the wheelchair and back into the bed, being able to swing your own legs over instead of having your grandson lift them makes a huge difference; it gives you some of your dignity and independence back.
Total time observed this session: 5 hours
Total time observed thus far: 20 hours, 10 minutes
I have so much more to report, but I'll have to come back later...
So last week I had another observapalooza, this one with Molly. We got to see three clients. (I have changed the details as always, never fear...) Client #1 had a TBI (traumatic brain injury) due to an MVA (motor vehicle accident) more than a decade ago, apparently had a Glasgow score of 4 or 5 (which is very low, very bad, and connotes a very poor prognosis), and is really in amazingly good shape, all things considered. She speaks quickly, which is very unusual for someone with a TBI, and has to be told to speak more slowly and loudly. Since I had not heard her history, Molly asked her to tell me about her accident, which she did. It made the little hairs stand up on the back of my neck....another one for the "just slap me if I complain about anything" file.
We were working mostly on her trigger finger, a pointer finger that was stuck in flexion. Molly taped it with kinesio tape and had the client pick up some dice of various sizes and move them around, and then the client pulled out her clarinet and played a little bit. It's a terrific therapeutic activity because it requires you to hold your trunk upright, breathe deeply from the diaphragm, focus the breath into the instrument, and move the fingers over the holes and stops, including that pesky pointer finger. (The client called it "ornery," which made me laugh.)
All in all, the client was very appropriate in her emotions and speech, although she apparently still has some fairly major memory deficits (she still forgets she has a clarinet unless she leaves it in plain sight). Her one quirk, which I found adorable and endearing, was that she kept throwing in little phrases in Italian. She spent a year as an exchange student in Italy less than two years before her accident and spoke Italian pretty well. She loved the experience, and even the accident and TBI could not knock the Italian out of her. Instead of saying "thank you," most of the time she said "grazie" instead. Same thing for "you're welcome," "hello," and "goodbye," as well as a few other affectionate phrases ("I'm so proud of you," "You're very nice," etc.). It was very cute, I thought.
Our second client was the lovely Janet, Molly's ALS client. More kinesio tape for Janet's own ornery stuck-in-flexion pointer finger, discussion of an ALS support group that Molly was scouting out for Janet, and some issues with emotional lability (Janet was very perplexed that she could go from happy to crying and back again at the drop of a hat, and Molly reassured her that this is actually pretty common with ALS and does have a biological origin). And oh yes, the bed maker. Janet had ordered this gadget because she was having trouble tucking the sheets under on her mother's bed. She didn't want to leave them hanging because she was afraid that her mother, who is quite elderly, would trip on them and fall. So Janet, Molly, Janet's sister-in-law who was up visiting from Georgia, and I all crowded around the bed to try out this wondrous-sounding device. Well. It might have worked if the mattress weren't made out of lead bars. Seriously, it was quite possibly the heaviest mattress I have ever struggled with, and it was only a full-size bed! Anyway, Molly tried it a few different ways and finally decided sitting in a chair was the easiest way to use it, but she really had to lean into it and still could barely get the sheets tucked. Janet tried and made an I-give-up face after about ten seconds. Her sister-in-law gave it a whirl and was equally defeated. Janet pointed authoritatively at me, and I too gave it a shot. I did manage to get it to work, but I sounded like Hulk Hogan in the WWF World Championships. The noises that came out of me were anything but ladylike, and everyone had a good laugh over it before we sadly put the bed maker back in its box to return for a refund.
Client #3 was a gentleman who was actually more or less housebound and on oxygen. He had a long list of medical issues, most of which had been exacerbated by a stroke that had left him in a nursing home for months. He had been thrilled to finally come back home and even more thrilled when Molly started working with him about six weeks prior. Understandably, the man had been quite depressed at his feelings of neediness and helplessness. Molly gave him a whole series of strengthening exercises that he could do right in his bed, and as I watched, she had him work on rolling himself over so that his legs hung off the side of the bed, first on one side, and then the other. Then she even had him do it without using his arms to pull himself over. The man was so amazed and happy when he found that he could do it with just his core and lower extremities! It sounds like a small thing, but being able to get yourself to a seated position over the edge of the bed makes it so much easier to get into a wheelchair! And likewise, when you transfer out of the wheelchair and back into the bed, being able to swing your own legs over instead of having your grandson lift them makes a huge difference; it gives you some of your dignity and independence back.
Total time observed this session: 5 hours
Total time observed thus far: 20 hours, 10 minutes
I have so much more to report, but I'll have to come back later...
Saturday, July 16, 2011
A quick update
It has been a busy week. My second Abnormal Psych exam was Monday the 11th, so I spent the whole weekend beforehand studying. The exam seemed pretty easy--on one of the fill-in-the-blank questions, the prof even gave us the first letter of the answer, which I thought was extremely generous (and unnecessary for anyone who actually bothered to study).
Tuesday I went shadowing, but I was only able to observe one client. The OTs have to get permission from their clients before they can bring me along, and understandably, not everyone wants to have an extra person cataloging their vulnerabilities. And you definitely don't want to have someone observing the first time you meet with a client. Such was the case this week, so I met Kay a little later in the morning outside the building of a client who was okay with the extra eyeballs. The client, Lottie, was a lovely woman in her 80s, laughing at her shortcomings and telling jokes the whole time we were with her. Her main issue was low vision, so Kay was going to work with her on operating the player machine she had gotten from the state library for the blind and physically disabled. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the little discs to go in the machine. Lottie is careful not to move things around because she knows she will have trouble finding them again, and she was sure they were on the table, but we couldn't turn them up. After a phone call or two, Kay discovered Lottie's daughter had sent them back, thinking they were overdue! Oops. So we worked on other things instead, including climate control. I never realized this before, but do you know how hard it is to adjust a thermostat when you have a severe vision impairment? Lottie has a digital thermostat with a simple slider for warmer/cooler, but she never uses it because she can't read the temperature on the digital display. It's way, way too small! When the weather gets hot, as it did this week, it's a major concern if your client is just leaving the window open because she can't use her thermostat to set the air conditioning. (Whatever happened to Universal Design??) So it was a short 1 hour and 15 minutes this week, bringing my total observation time to 8 hours and 30 minutes.
We got our Abnormal Psych exams back on Friday, and guess who got ANOTHER perfect score? Yup. There were five perfect scores, so the exam really was easy peasy, but this puts me in great shape for exam #3. As long as I don't completely bomb it, I should be able to start filling in my prereq sheet with a big fat A.
Tuesday I went shadowing, but I was only able to observe one client. The OTs have to get permission from their clients before they can bring me along, and understandably, not everyone wants to have an extra person cataloging their vulnerabilities. And you definitely don't want to have someone observing the first time you meet with a client. Such was the case this week, so I met Kay a little later in the morning outside the building of a client who was okay with the extra eyeballs. The client, Lottie, was a lovely woman in her 80s, laughing at her shortcomings and telling jokes the whole time we were with her. Her main issue was low vision, so Kay was going to work with her on operating the player machine she had gotten from the state library for the blind and physically disabled. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the little discs to go in the machine. Lottie is careful not to move things around because she knows she will have trouble finding them again, and she was sure they were on the table, but we couldn't turn them up. After a phone call or two, Kay discovered Lottie's daughter had sent them back, thinking they were overdue! Oops. So we worked on other things instead, including climate control. I never realized this before, but do you know how hard it is to adjust a thermostat when you have a severe vision impairment? Lottie has a digital thermostat with a simple slider for warmer/cooler, but she never uses it because she can't read the temperature on the digital display. It's way, way too small! When the weather gets hot, as it did this week, it's a major concern if your client is just leaving the window open because she can't use her thermostat to set the air conditioning. (Whatever happened to Universal Design??) So it was a short 1 hour and 15 minutes this week, bringing my total observation time to 8 hours and 30 minutes.
We got our Abnormal Psych exams back on Friday, and guess who got ANOTHER perfect score? Yup. There were five perfect scores, so the exam really was easy peasy, but this puts me in great shape for exam #3. As long as I don't completely bomb it, I should be able to start filling in my prereq sheet with a big fat A.
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