Nearing the End of Week Two

Let's see if I can recap the past few days...

On Tuesday I was able to work with a couple more patients.  A young boy with cerebral palsy (CP) was my first patient in the morning.  He is a super funny kid to be around.  He always has something to tell you, he loves to tickle you, and 90% of the time he has some kind of super power.  My first time working with him on my own involved a lot of energy on his behalf!  He was so wound up and I was not able to get all my treatment goals completed.  It made writing the daily note rather difficult!  Which...speaking of note writing, he was the first patient I had to write a note about.  My supervisor didn't have me write notes for my patients on Monday.  It proved to be more challenging than I expected.
My second patient was a girl around 20 years old that also has CP.  She is non-verbal and doesn't seem to like therapy a whole lot.  She puts forth little effort and lacks motivation in a big way.  Regardless, I've still seen some improvements over the last two weeks.  She was kind of another tricky patient for me to see because her range of motion on the right side is so limited and she is non-verbal.

On Wednesday I got to see my very first patient from Monday again.  We worked on lot on seated activities which required a lot of physical support from me.  I feel like I've thrown my shoulder out from trying to help him maintain his balance on the edge of the mat.  At the end of the session, he requested that I transfer him back to his chair.  I was really nervous about doing the transfer because of his high muscle tone, but since he requested that I do the transfer, I went for it!  My supervisor showed me what to do and it was an overall smooth transfer!
After lunch, I went with my supervisor to do a session at a patient's home.  This little girl has a very rare diagnosis of D-bifunctional protein deficiency disorder.  She has very low muscle tone so the two main things that OT works on is doing some passive range of motion (PROM) as well as minor weight bearing through the upper extremities.  I watched my supervisor (who has worked with this 4 year old since she was 2 months old).  I was scared to even touch the precious little thing for fear of hurting her.  My supervisor let me finish up the shoulder PROM and just sit with her for a little while.  It was a very neat experience and I hope I get to go back and work with her again a few times before my 8 weeks is up.

Today involved another adventure with the two boys that have CP.  The younger one that I started with on Tuesday and was full of energy was significantly more mellow today.  I accomplished nearly all of the treatment goals during the session (which made note writing MUCH easier)!  I also worked with the older one who nearly knocked me to the ground on Monday and Wednesday.  I did better with him today and learned a better way to keep him stabilized but my shoulder still feels like it's going to fall apart.  We had another smooth transfer back to his chair at the end of the session and I felt pretty good about the session as a whole.
Later in the afternoon I worked with the cute little guy from Monday.  We got more accomplished than we did on Monday which made me feel good.  He's so easily distracted that he is hard to work with but he's adorable and I love working with him!

While I've only done a few treatment sessions on my own, I've been assisting with many more throughout the course of each day.  I have been working on my throwing/catching skills, my balloon hitting skills, and even my soccer skills!  I have learned how to play new games and I got to play on the swing a couple times too.  I'm absolutely loving this time of learning!!!