I passed this last fieldwork, by the way. That was implied, but I feel like I need to state it. Just because I'm still digesting it all. Like, not the part that I passed, I felt fairly confident about that, but the fact that I am not a student anymore. I imagine it won't REALLY sink in until I land my first job. But, more on that later. (And by later, I mean not in this particular blog post.)
The focus of this blog is on my learning experiences in the field of OT, so I am going to limit my nebulous reminiscing and focus on the stuff that happened. Which is probably much more interesting to my readers.
I had my first experience with cooking-as-an-intervention a few weeks ago, and, let me tell you, it was a doozy. My patient was planning on returning home alone, and taking care of all the cooking, cleaning, etc. So, of course, we addressed some meal prep and baking in therapy before her discharge. We made chocolate chip cookies in the activities department kitchen. Now, we had been warned prior to beginning that the oven hadn't been used in a long time, and it might give off an unpleasant smell. The cookies only had to bake for 8 minutes, so it would be fine. Or so I thought. Up to about 6 minutes into the actual baking of the cookies, all was well. My patient did all the preparation and was ambulating in the kitchen safely and efficiently. In fact, we even had a brief spiritual interlude when the priest came in to give her communion, since she had missed the service earlier that day. And, just as the priest finished the final prayer, the fire alarm went off. So, yes, the warning from before was partially true. There was a smell. And that smell was smoke. Thankfully, the word got passed along that it wasn't actually a fire, it was just the oven. Not before a large group of nurses and aides arrived on the scene, fire extinguishers in hand. But, by the time the fire chief got there, everyone was up to speed on the situation. Turns out that someone was supposed to have cleaned the oven a long time ago, but didn't. Classic. The most important thing is that, despite this kerfuffle, the cookies emerged unscathed. And, my patient was discharged at the end of the week and returned home successfully and happily. And she will probably never forget the time the OT student had her make cookies.
One of the greatest things about being an OT in a rehab setting is that you get to work with people for quite a long time, anywhere from 2-8 weeks, generally. And, you get to see all the awesome progress that they make in that time! One of my patients will always be particularly memorable, we'll call them C for the purposes of confidentiality. I evaluated C about a month ago. C arrived at the facility after undergoing surgery for a hip fracture. On the day of the evaluation, it took 2 people to get C up and out of bed, C was reporting a lot of pain, and C was not pleased with us. Or anyone. And, I ended up working with C almost every day. And, to be honest, I wasn't thrilled about this. Upon entering C's room, I usually got several orders to "do this" or "help with this". And, more than once, I was told I should be doing my job differently. And, progress was slow. We were working towards getting C as independent as possible with daily tasks, and C did not appear overeager to BE independent. But, that was not completely true. While it did take a lot of coaching and encouragement to get C to participate in therapy, I soon realized that some of the lack of motivation came from doubt. C had been very used to doing things independently prior to injury, and was now having a difficult time imagining getting back to that. Which was, I think, quite discouraging and depressing for C. But, this also meant that, in order to get that motivation, C needed to see that progress was happening, and that attaining that goal of independence was possible. Which did eventually occur. It was almost like it happened overnight, although I know it didn't. C was getting out of bed and getting dressed with very minimal assistance from me. And, C realized it too. It was like C had made it to the top of the mountain, and could see everything more clearly. After that, C was enthusiastic and cheerful during therapy sessions. In fact, C would come, unasked, to the therapy gym immediately following breakfast, ready to work. And, the whole thing wasn't just encouraging to C, it was incredibly encouraging to me as well. Work as an OT can be stressful and frustrating at times, just like any other job. But seeing progress like this is reassuring and soothing to those anxious feelings because you know that what you're doing is making a difference.
Being at a SNF was, in many ways, on the opposite end of the spectrum from being in a school setting. In the schools, I was working on handwriting, coloring, cutting, social skills, visual tracking, etc. Here, I was working on dressing, going to the bathroom, grooming, etc. And cooking. Or baking, rather. Funny story about that in a few sentences. But, both settings I loved dearly. Because I love OT.
No comments:
Post a Comment