Where does the time go?

Wow. Seems like it's been forever since my last post.  Things just got crazy busy. I joined FlyDog fitness' boot camp for a month, so for about 1.5hrs after work I'd go up to North Charleston to work out with them everyday. By the time I'd get home there was just enough time to shower, scrap up something for dinner, then crash, before doing it all over again the next day. I loved it though. Met some great people and was a good use of some spare time! Unfortunately that month membership is over, sad. Too much moula to do it again. Plus, MUSC had a Wellness Race to promote their wellness center. 20 bucks to enter the race got you a month membership at the gym. So I was all over that! Got 3rd in my age division so actually got a 15$ gift card back....do the math and that is 5$ for a month gym membership! Love that!  :) Just started there a couple days ago and have the month already mapped out with daily classes ranging from Body bar, yoga, strength & conditioning, to zumba and cycling!  Can't wait to get into the rhythm.   My parents came in for a few days a couple weeks ago too.  Really needed that.  Showed them around downtown a bit and did some site-seeing.

Finishing up this week with CI #1, then will be moving to another portion of the hospital to work under a different instructor for the remainder of my time here. Kinda sad. I've developed good friendships with everyone where I'm at now, and there isn't anyone my age where I'm going.  *sigh*   Oh, well, all is well.  At least I have a roommate now! Yup, reached the halfway point and now she is on rotation at a skilled nursing facility close by. So she'll be with me the remainder of the semester!  We went for a walk down King St last night, went to church this morning, had lunch with some of the people from church (they take college aged students out once a month and buy them lunch! Happened to be today so we joined!), then did some grocery shopping. Now we're just enjoying Sunday afternoon Lifetime movies and ice cream!  :)  Ain't life grand!  HA!  

Anywho, all is well, I'm alive and kickin. Still very much enjoying Charleston! I'll try not to wait so long before my next post!

Could've been worse

So yea don't leave pretty things outside if you live downtown.  I know now from experience, cause my awesome 3y/o shiny blue bike......STOLEN. Right out of my backyard, here in Charleston. Really put a damper on my daily transit.   : /  Anywho, I've been pretty dang irritated and pissed off about it since Monday morning, when I walked down from the apartment to head out to work and found my ride was no where is site. Not a trace.  First thing I did--first thing I Always do when I need to vent-- I called my Mom. "Well as long as you're ok. At least it wasn't your car."  Of course leave it to Momma to make me feel like I should "count my lucky stars" rather than piss and moan about it. Which in the grand scheme of things are great words of wisdom, but at the time I just wasn't hearing nothing of it! I just wanted to be frustrated at stupid people who do crap like stealing other people's belongings.  But she's right, it Could have been worse...A lot worse. It was just a bike, a small luxury item. Not a life, not a trip to the hospital, not a life altering event, not even that big of a blow to the wallet-- cause I've gotten many a great rides out of that bike!  

Just a minute ago I was looking through my Facebook homepage and saw that one of my former classmates actually came home from clinical today to find his door kicked in and many of his valuable belongings gone.  I would much rather be in my shoes than his.   Kinda gave me some perspective.  Could always be worse.

Getting attached hurts

Wow, it's been 4 weeks! 1/4 of the way there! Had to write up another "biweekly planning form" for school and almost forgot til last night. Didn't realize that it was time already again!  Things are going great. Loving this setting actually much more than I thought I would.  Sad thing though...one of my favorite patients died yesterday. It all happened so fast. She had chronic liver failure and then her kidneys started to weaken about 1 1/2 weeks ago so they put her on continuous dialysis. After a few days it seemed as if things were turning for the better, she got moved to step down and was on dialysis 2-3x/week. The social worker had talked to us about her going home by this weekend. Then seemingly out of nowhere she started to go into kidney failure and began having respiratory complications. She went back to ICU yesterday morning and was gone by the time we got back up there right after lunch. So sad. She was the sweetest little lady.  I couldn't help but stop by to say hi to her even on days when we weren't treating her just to see her pretty smile.  It hit me kinda hard when they told us she passed.  I was getting kind of attached to her, since she was such a long term patient. She's been here the entire time I've been here. She had quite the personality too. Always made me laugh. She was an elderly black woman with barely any teeth, and so hard to understand the first couple times I worked with her. Had some difficulty even the last few visits but could make out most of what she'd say just out of getting used to it and all. But anyway, my CI would always push, push, push this patient to stand more, walk more, etc.  This lady would do it, but wasn't always happy about it! :) She could give my CI looks that could kill small children in about .8secs literally. But then when CI would turn her back, this pt would turn sharply at me and grin so big!  Ha, told her we were just gonna keep playing "good cop, bad cop."  Ah, man I'm gonna miss her!  Didn't think I'd be able to get too attached to patients in acute care, considering the first 2 weeks our turnover rate was so large. People were in and out in a matter of like 2 days. 

There is only one other patient that I have right now that is considered "long term." She'd been here already 2-3 months before I showed up. She had a gastric-bypass gone bad. Was actually in a coma for like a week, then had a few other medical complications, developed some bad pressure sores from being in bed and unable to move for so long. Yesterday afternoon we got her OUTSIDE of her room for the first time in months! She walked with a walker for 40ft...twice!  I was so pumped, considering the frustration and difficulty we've had with her over the last couple weeks. She isn't the easiest person to work with. She has very lazy tendencies, spends at least 20-22hrs of the day laying in bed. Even though she is now moderately independent with getting up out of bed and transferring to the bedside chair. All we do now is just try to get her to walk more and supervise in case she lost her balance or something. I've pushed over and over again that she needs to get the foley catheter out now that she is able to safely transfer out of bed and could get to a bedside commode. But that would require her to get up multiple times each day, so she has been pretty hesitant about it.  There have been many frustrating days working with her due to her lack of self motivation. And the fact that she tells nursing staff that she can only get out of bed with PT, and has been refusing occupational therapy lately. She's been here way too long and her insurance ran out the first of Sept.  But her house was taken away from her since she could make payments on them for so long and her family lives on the pacific coast.  Anywho, I think I've begun to make some improvements with her though. She's come a long way since I've gotten to see her. She isn't the nicest person, she orders people around a lot--"get my water," "put my socks on," "fix my sheets," "I'll do it 5x but no more," etc.  I feel like she's trying to control what she feels like she still can contribute some control to, since she's been in the hospital for so long and cannot always dictate everything that happens. So unfortunately we see that a lot with patients in acute care...they can't control other aspects of care, but they do have the opportunity to refuse therapy. I've actually found out that you have to introduce an idea to her and then let in sink in for at least day or two before you try it. That way she kind of feels like she still decides when she does it. I've expressed this theory with her social worker and the other PTs/OT in our department.  They obviously have a little different view of her though since they've dealt with her "issues" for some time now and are pretty much fed up with all of it. My CI feels like I'm getting through to her so every afternoon she just lets me go in and direct the days treatment. Which I feel has helped in her progression through treatment, to see a fresh face. And I try to motivate her each day and challenge her to go a bit further the next day. But I think it's mostly the approach. You have to almost talk to her as a child, be sweet and smile, kind of pat her on the back and tell her how much you believe in her, that sort of thing. Hopefully it'll continue to work. Told her my long term goal for her was to walk to the elevators so we could then walk to the Starbucks on the first floor. If she did that before I left, I'd buy her what she wanted from Starbucks!

"You're famous"

Week 3. Wow, time is freaking flying by. My confidence level has risen tremendously since I first showed up here. I think I am actually starting to pass for a real PT! I've been approached numerous times already this week by nurses, residents, techs, patients and family members with requests and questions! My favorite example happened yesterday afternoon. My CI was finishing up a progress note and told me to go ahead to the next patient, whom was my new eval, so that I could go start the chart review. On my way one of the medical residents on the floor literally chased me down. (Apparently she was trying to get my attention from down the hall, and when I didn't stop she ran me down.) When she caught up with me she first apologized for not remembering my name, then began to give me a synopsis of a patient in the east wing of that (her) floor that was being discharged home that day. She had forgotten to write up a PT consult that morning and asked if I didn't mind doing a quick discharge eval. Ha! It threw me off at first cause in my head I'm thinking, "Wait I'm just a student, you need to talk to Amy." But instead I 'put on my big girl pants' (as my dad would say) and proceeded with, "Ok, sure what room # and name? Ok, sounds good, but before I can see her you'll need to be sure to add an order for PT in the system. Legalities, ya know." "Ok, of course. I'll put it in right now," she responded, "Thank you so much. I'm so sorry to catch you like this, I really appreciate it though."  "Not a problem at all!"  

HAHA!! Imagine the smile on my face as we parted ways! I went on to my new eval and proceeded with the chart review and gave my CI the run down on this other patient, when she got there. Well, we got everyone seen and at the end of the day when we got back to the office, my CI checked the fax and found the consult for that surprise patient. It read "Spoke about PT evaluation for discharge needs as per PT Amanda. 8/31/10" I didn't know what it had said at first, my CI just laughed and said "you're famous" as she passed the consult around the office for the other ladies to read. When I finally saw it I couldn't help but laugh too! Grinning ear to ear, I slid it into my bag and told them I was keeping this one! Haha!

Another good one was while I was sitting at a computer outside one of our only scheduled patient's room. I came up to her room to so that I could type up an evaluation I'd done that day. I forget why my CI wasn't with me at the time. But anyway, it was like 2:00 and the patient whose room I was outside of was scheduled daily to receive pain meds at 2:25ish so as to be ready for PT by 2:30.  So I'm there minding my own business, writing up this eval, when a nurse walks up asking me if she missed something and she was late with delivering the medications. Told her no she was fine, that I was just taking some time to finish some paperwork. "Ok well just page me when you're done and ready to go in and I'll give her her pain meds." I don't know, may seem minuscule to you, but to me it gave me a small sense of authority or importance, or whatever, made me feel good! :) 

Anywho, enough of "tooting my own horn."   :)

Anchors Away!

Saturday was AWESOME! An organization called Team Anchors Away puts on different events throughout the year that caters to disabled individuals, to "level the playing field," enabling them to participate in activities of able-bodied people. Yesterday they put on a water ski clinic. I was lucky enough to have made connections my first couple days in Charleston that gave me the heads up about this opportunity to volunteer! Having helped out with a similar organization based in Augusta, GA, I jumped at the chance to do it again. It was so much fun! My job was to be "jumper." As a jumpers I was a passenger on the jet skis, and follow along side the participant as they were pulled behind a boat on their custom ski. When they wiped out, my duty was to jump in and keep them afloat and right side up on the board, grab the rope and reset it in the blocks (most the participants had a high level spinal cord injury and didn't have grip strength to hold the handle of the rope, so it was knotted up and placed in a slit between two blocks at the front of the ski so as to pull the ski independently), then do a deep water start to get them back up a running. That was the coolest part...the deep water start. Just had to center them the back of the boat, keep the nose of the board up and then ride a few feet with them once the boat started to pick up speed, once they were good I'd let go and my jet ski driver would pick me up, and off again to follow the skier. 

The whole day was such a blast! Seeing everyone having so much fun, it was too sweet. One of the girls would throw her arms up in the air like she was riding a roller coaster. We could see the biggest grin on her face and her head being thrown back as she horse laughed from time to time, having so much fun! It was her first time skiing. You could tell she was having the time of her life out there!  One of the little boys was pretty timid, it was his first time coming to an event like this too. He had cerebral palsy. His parents finally talked him into riding in one of the boats while his friend was being pulled. It got him used to the speed and he got to see how much fun his buddy was having. Next thing ya know a ski cage was getting adjusted and fitted for him. He was so cute!

By the end of the day most of the participants and their families had called it quits and were filtering out. A regular Anchors Away participant started asking if any of us wanted to try the skis. Guess who was the first to raise her hand?! Yep, of course I wanted to do it! And I loved EVERY minute! I held on to the rope though so I felt like I had some control. After a bit I got brave and started zig-zagging across the wake and jumping waves. Of course I eventually lost control and wiped out! The cage was a bit too big since wasn't fitted to be before I got started. So when I wiped out I came completely out of the cage and the ski went flying across the water!!! Ha! My jumper had to dive in, grab the ski, then swim back to me. The board hit me pretty good on the ankle before it skidded across the water. It still hurts soo bad! Very point tender! Nevertheless, wouldn't change anything about the whole day!

Can't wait til their next event in October--Lt Dan Weekend!  They're having a concert by "The Lt. Dan Band," whose lead singer is Gary Sinise, the guy who played Lt. Dan in "Forrest Gump"!! There will also be wounded warrior presentations at a local high school, a 5k run and 5k bike race offered for whole community and the wounded warriors, as well as plenty of activities to choose from: golf, tennis, basketball, scuba diving, kayaking, adaptive aquatics, fishing, horseback riding, boat rides!  Count me in!

The road gladdens the obsessed ghost. 

Downtown Pics

There were sail boats out everywhere! Makes me wanna learn!

Monument memorial dedicated to those at Fort Sumter

I think this is the USS Yorktown. Need to get over there for a tour to be sure!

One of the fountains off E Bay street

Not sure of the name of this park, but its next to the pier off East Bay Street

Boardwalk along South Battery Street

Statue to the Confederate Defenders of Charleston at Fort Sumter

Monument of George Washington

Missed ya!

Today was such a BEAUTIFUL day, and for some odd reason I actually had a boost of energy when I got home from the hospital. Soo....I went for a nice long walk....literally 2 hours just walking around downtown Charleston! How lovely! Of course I took the camera, because that's what I do! Love taking pictures of EVERYthing! I'll post them soon. My battery died while I was out. 

What made the wonderful "hump-day" walk even better was getting to talk to some of my girls from PT school!  Talked to Ashley, Stacey, and Whitney! It was amazing getting to catch up with them all individually.  Probably could've walk another two hours had any of them had the time to continue talking  :)  Today makes me miss them even more than I previously thought I did! Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely loving Charleston, but man....Wish I had them all here with me!  Planning a weekend trip to Jacksonville soon, which is where both Ashley and Stacey are on rotations, until October anyway.  Can't wait!