School...

Well I wanted to do a post about my school program so far, I am doing Occupational therapy at SLCC... It's been really fun. Ocupational therapy is kind of like Physical therapy, except in PT they really get people strong again, in OT we get them strong again, then we teach them how to take their new strength and make it functional in life again, and help them do just basic Activities of daily living! It's really cool we get to use all these fun little gadgets alot of times. It's a neat field because some people who like are quadraplegic or had a really bad stroke most people just give up on them and say they won't ever be functional again, thats when OT steps in and really helps them get to a level of functional independance again. My classmates are really fun too, I've made some good friends already, we all say we're going to hate eachother by next year, but right now it is really fun.

Part of the schooling is doing fieldwork with real clinicians, today is the last day of mine for this semester, it's been pretty interesting, the only bad thing is my field work is at a hospital and alot of patients have alot of contagious viruses and staff infections...so sometimes I don't like to go there and then come home and handle Linnea...I promise I clean before, but it still makes me nervous. I am almost done with my first semester in the program, now only two more class semesters then one internship semester and I'm done!!!! I've been talking to the U and seeing how easy it would be to go on and get my Masters done in it someday...I may not be able to right after I graduate (We have to get Derek through school too) but maybe someday after all my kids are in school I could, I think I would like to, but who knows by that point I'll probably say I am not going back :)

Here are some pictures of our lab class...My sister Katie is actually my teacher for this class...it really is the best class because it puts us into disabled people's shoes for a few hours and teaches us how to transfer and gives us the hands on part of lectures that we get prior to the class...In this lab we were all people who had a total hip surgury...they have a lot of precautions they have to follow after surgury, basically they can sit in a wheelchair at 90 degrees and not move. So Katie wanted us to put on shoes and socks...good luck. Then we were stroke victim who lost funtionality in our hand, so she wanted us to put on a bra...Also since alot of the patients out there are the elderly we had to practice our bedside manner with an individual who is hearing impaired! Fun times.

Katie Teaching us how to stand from sitting to a walker as a person who had a total hip replacement! (there are more rules than you think)

Using the grabbers and sock aids, to get our socks, without breaking rules

Putting on our bras with one hand (ok he's cheating, but cut him some slack )

Working with the hearing impaired!