:)

Things are still going good this week at my clinical/internship. I am extremely grateful that my CI "saw the light" over the weekend. I am now able to work with most of the patients on my own to an extent. I pretty much work with the ones who I can treat with techniques I learned in school and then my CI steps in if they need any type of advanced manual therapy. It's been a pretty good arrangement so far this week. We're also starting to really pick up with patients and the days are getting booked solid so we are super busy, which is great. I am learning a ton from the variety of cases we're getting and the days are going by so fast. I didn't even have time to look at the clock at all today.

I have to say that I was a bit intimidated by my first patient from East-side Toledo today. My first clinical was in Sylvania and the other was in Bryan. Although I experienced "interesting" patients at each, I never had a patient from east Toledo before. I hate to stereotype East Toledoans, because I'm sure they're not all the same, but....my patient today did absolutely nothing to convince me that my stereotype is unwarranted. She was 46 years old and had no teeth. She smelled like stale smoke. The very first thing she said was, "Before you even say anything, this is my husband to be, not my son. He's 24 and I'm 46. You got a problem with that?" She spent the entire eval giving one-word answers and acting like anything we did was causing her excruciating pain. She can not lay on her back or her stomach, yet she expects us to treat her neck pain, in addition to her shoulder pain. For those of you who know the biomechanics of the neck, it would be pretty obvious that there is really no way to treat a patient for neck pain if the patient can not tolerate laying supine or prone. So....this patient will be interesting.

Despite this exception, most of the patients I've met so far have been very nice, fun to work with, and easy to get along with. It's kind of funny how you develop relationships with them differently than the acute care setting. In acute care, you only see them for 15 to 20 minutes at a time plus they're only there for a few days and then gone, so you don't get attached to them. In outpatient, you see them for 45 to 60 minutes at a time and for 2-3 days / week for 2-3 weeks. I am already going to miss some of my patients when they get discharged.

In other news, yesterday I went back to Fayette to vote, since my cousin was running for township trustee. He ended up winning by plenty of votes. It was pretty cool to see this morning online that he not only won, but beat everyone in the category. I'm glad that I live close enough and got out of work early enough yesterday to be able to go back home and vote, but the drive made me realize how glad I am to have a shorter commute every day. Although I am really enjoying my clinical/internship right now, I don't know how I would survive it if I had to drive an hour and a half to get there every morning and then an hour and a half home.