8:00 AM Lola - re-schedule (out smoking).
9:00 AM Tania - re-schedule (wants to smoke with Lola).
So I sat in the gym writing poetry (yes poetry) and munching on beef jerky because the computer did not work for me to actually be productive and get my weekly notes done. With that all said, let me tell you what I don't like.
I don't like scheduling my own clients. For one, you cannot really schedule effectively because they have a million other facility activities (which I am so glad they attend to stay active and involved), and second, even if I do schedule them, my clients forget 99% of the time who I even am and why they are having occupational therapy -let alone remember a therapy schedule. So I basically hang out in the therapy gym, waiting till I see them wheel by so I can chase them down. Or I'll visit their rooms hoping they are inside and not a grumpy case. I do enjoy my grumpy clients though!
The other day I heard one of my 93-year-old clients yell, as she was shuffling to the door with her walker to let me in, "Now what the hell are we doing today? That exercise shit?!" Wow. Those are the two descriptors I have ALWAYS thought of using when asked to describe OT -"exercise" and "shit". I have obviously not done my part. I used the time to do a little educating on what OT really was about. I was certain I would have to re-live that conversation at the beginning of our next session, and quite possibly for the weeks to come.
When Lola WASN'T smoking and decided to do therapy, we planted a patch of flowers outside her back door. I'm pretty sure I got more out of it then she did because I do not have the slightest clue how to plant anything in the ground, much less keep it alive. But Lola taught me. She showed me how, before you start digging blindly into the ground, you have to first shape it. So she got a knife, stabbed the ground (which eventually broke the knife), and traced a half moon from her wall. Then she poured water along the area she traced and asked for a shovel. I had none. "Well good lord, Katie. How are we gonna do this cognitive therapy without a shovel. Let's go." She clung to my arm and walked me down the hall. She stopped halfway and pointed through the glass window at some other resident's porch. Standing as clear as day against the wall was a shovel. "Come on". Lola snuck behind the back of the building, knocked on the porch sliding door, and when no one answered said, "Ok, we're taking it. I'll ask to borrow it later. And he'll say yes and it'll all be good." So we walked back to shovel out Lola's garden. As she was shoveling away, I thought to myself, "Is this even allowed? She's digging up the property, with a shovel that isn't even hers." I just hoped that whatever we were creating was going to look better than what it originally looked like.
The whole process of digging and walking over to find (well, steal) a shovel, clean it, and return it took a whole hour. Before I knew it, I had my next appointment. So we called it a day and Lola instructed me on buying her a bag of potting soil so we could continue this project the next day. When the next day came around, Lola taught me to muddy-up the soil, scoop it out, place the potted plants that were broken apart at the roots, stabilize them with the mud, cover them with the potting soil, water them, and wala! She had a little flower patch outside her back door. I just had to take a picture of it:
At first I thought this activity was not going to be therapeutic in that I was probably the one needing some kind of gardening intervention. But the more I thought about it, the more therapeutic it became. Body mechanics, posturing and positioning, balance, sit to stand transfers, tool manipulation, reaching, weightshifting, strength and endurance -all obtained with a functional activity that addressed Lola's goals. So I was happy. But more importantly, Lola was happy. Because it was something that was meaningful to her.
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