4 days left

One more week...I'm happy because I am sick and tired of driving so far every day. But I'm also a bit sad. I will definitely miss the people I've worked with for the past couple of months (well, most of them). They are a great group.

I survived the "out of nowhere" snow storm that we got yesterday. It went from "oh maybe 1-3" of accumulation" to me driving to work in some crazy snow drifts, getting to work and finding out that it had snowed a total of 6-8" while I was there. Needless to say, I didn't feel bad about sneaking out of the clinic early because the drive home wasn't very much fun.

However, the roads and been cleared off and the snow was melting when I was on my way to the conference/seminar this morning. That was very much appreciated, because although I know my way to Toledo Hospital, I am not a big fan of it because it is so poorly marked when you need to go to a specific building and park in a specific place. But I made it to where I needed to be and I made it there on time. As much as I did not want to spend 8 hours of my Saturday at a seminar, it was actually well worth my time. I was pretty impressed that there were so many PTs, OTs, and MDs from around the area who attended. The lectures were very informative. If I am lucky enough to get a job in an outpatient setting after graduation, I think I will attend the seminar again next year (since the topics change every year and I will actually be able to get some CEUs out of it).

But...as much as I really do like working in the outpatient orthopedic setting, I've come to the conclusion that working four 10 hour days is just not for me. I miss out on so many activities in the evenings and I hate that. I did not spend 7 years in college and grad school to not be able to go to the events that I want to go to in the evenings. Last night I missed 90% of a Relay for Life fundraiser for a friend. I really wanted to be there and be able to do more. I'm not saying that I don't want to work, I'm just saying that I've paid my dues (literally) and I do NOT want to work anything other than first shift type hours.

With that said, I am planning on relaxing for the rest of the day and maybe getting in about one hour of studying later on. Tomorrow after church, my mom and I are going to go visit the doctor that she used to work for. He is at a nursing home, but he is going to be hooding me for graduation in May (that is the plan anyway, as long as he is still able to do so), so we are going to go visit and spend the afternoon with him. I am looking forward to it. My graduation will be so special if he can be there and be the one to hood me. We have to be "hooded" by someone who has a doctorate degree since that is the degree that we are getting. It means so much more to me to have someone that I have known my whole life hooding me than to have a random faculty member that I have only known for a couple of years do it. So mark your calendars for May 8. I will probably shed some tears.

Misery loves company

It will be a miracle if I even make it out of my pajamas today. Yes I woke up early (because I fell asleep at 9), but I don't plan on doing much of anything productive today. This week has been hectic. Yesterday we were booked through lunch and then triple booked at the end of the day. It's really getting old. I also don't think it's fair to our patients that they get shoved into the same appointment slots at 3 other people. I don't ever want to work in a clinic like that. I also felt like my feet were burning and ready to fall off at the end of the day yesterday from running around from patient to patient for 11 hours straight. Now that my presentation is done, I could spend my day off today actually studying for boards without anything else hanging over my head. However, I have to spend all day Saturday at a seminar, so I've chosen to do absolutely no studying today so that I actually get an "official" day off.

With that said, I've realized that this blog has been all about me whining again, and that's not what I wanted it to be at all. Yes, it's a good way to vent, but I'm sure all my loyal readers aren't getting much of anything out of it. In fact, I don't even know if I have any loyal readers anymore. But, I just thought I would share a few positive or uplifting things in addition to my earlier complaints in an attempt to make this post a little happier. So the following is a list of good things that are going on in my life.

• I only have 5 working days left. I should not have any evals tomorrow afternoon because my CI has the afternoon off, so let's all keep our fingers crossed that I actually get to leave at 6:30.
• The week after next is spring break! I don't have anything exciting planned, because I wanted to use those days to sleep in and study for boards, but I am taking one day to go shopping all day. I'm excited and in desperate need of new clothes and shoes.
• It's staying light out longer and it's almost time to change our clocks. I actually got to see a bit of daylight yesterday both in the morning when I got to work and a tiny bit when I was leaving. It won't be long until I don't feel like a vampire anymore.
• I found out that my hours at Montpelier (my last clinical) are Monday thru Friday from 8-4:30. I am so excited. I won't know what to do with myself if I am actually home by 5pm every day. I thought working four 10s would be great, and I do enjoy having the day off during the week, but I hate missing out on everything that happens in the evenings because I don't get home until late. Case in point, I am making pancakes and sausage for supper tonight to make up for the fact that I missed the pancake and sausage supper that the PTO had. I shouldn't miss out on a whole lot of that kind of stuff after next week.
• It's almost time to get the Mustang out and start driving it again. If my other car can just hold out for about 6 more weeks, it will have survived PT school.
• My new hair style looks pretty amazing if I do say so myself. I gave up on the lighter highlights and went for dark red instead. I think it looks a lot better. I even had a patient tell me the other day that she really liked my "purple hair." I wouldn't go so far as to call it "purple" but if I keep getting fun compliments like those, I'll stick with it.
• I'm currently contemplating taking a vacation at the end of school. I haven't really decided yet, but I'm thinking maybe the week after I take boards just taking off and going somewhere. Once I start a job, who knows that the vacation day benefits may be starting out, so I'm thinking of getting one in before I start working in the real world. Even if I don't end up going anywhere, it's fun to think about.

So I'll end with fun and happy thoughts instead of miserable and depressing whining today. After I post this, I am going to gear up to watch some mindless television. Yipee!

I survived another day

Well, I shockingly survived my presentation. although I'm not sure how. Maybe everyone realized just how super nervous I was and decided not to ask me any difficult or ridiculous questions, or maybe I just wowed them all with my vast array of knowledge that they couldn't think of anything more to ask me or maybe everyone just wanted to get the heck out of there and go eat lunch. Who knows. Either way, I survived. I was almost in tears this morning though because the other girl at my clinic who is in my class had her husband help her with her brochure and he is a graphic designer so he had this awesome computer program that he used to put together her brochure and make the pictures look awesome. Dummy here (me) only had access to Microsoft Word and had a printer that was about out of ink so had to print brochures that looked like a 5 year old made them. I was super close to just calling it quits, bawling like an idiots, and giving up this morning. Luckily, I stuck it out and made it through the presentation and no one made me feel like an idiot.

And let me just say THANK GOODNESS THAT IS OVER. With the all day seminar coming up on Saturday (that I will have to get up at 4:30am for and won't get home till 5pm), it's safe to say that I am very much looking forward to my Thursday off this week. I just have to get through tomorrow and then I will be spending all day Thursday sleeping and doing NOTHING. I can not wait. I'll watch some mindless television and do absolutely nothing productive what-so-ever. I will call it a "productive day" if I even get out of my pajamas. Seriously. I should study for boards or work on my resume, but I refuse. I'm going to do NOTHING.

Case of the Mondays..

Everything about me is sore right now. I'm not sure my brain has caught up with the fact that I am home and the workday is over. I'm not sure if I have a headache or if my brain is just seeping out all of the information that went through it today.

Today my clinical instructor called in sick. This normally would not be that big of a deal, if I were working in a NORMAL clinic with a NORMAL caseload. However, I am working in a clinic where patients are double (and sometimes triple) booked all day long with evals squeezed in tiny little time slots that are always too small. I was expected to be able to handle most of my CI's caseload on my own. Ok fine...Well, that's not so fine.

You see here in our grand state, PT students are not legally allowed to work with Medicare patients in an outpatient setting unless a PT is right there observing. PT students are also not allowed to bill for any treatments they give for any Medicare patients unless the PT guided and supervised those treatments. Well, it would just so happen that all of our morning patients except for 2 were Medicare patients, and therefore, I could not see them on my own and bill for it. Plus...one of our Medicare patients (who is so sweet and nice to work with) is a major fall risk. If she fell in the clinic and I was working with her without my CI or a licensed PT right there, I would be sure to lose my license before I even received it. NOT gonna happen. I refuse to take that risk. So I think they were mad at me that I refused to see her on my own and they ended up scheduling her with a PTA (who is licensed and CAN legally treat her on her own).

So I went through the stress of feeling like people were mad at me all morning to the stress of a double booked afternoon of NO Medicare patients, meaning that I was on my own. Luckily they called a PTA from another clinic to come over and help out and she took 3 of my patients, otherwise I seriously would have lost my mind. Then my last patient of the day ended up cancelling, and I know this sounds horrible, but I was kind of glad. I was so stressed and tired that I'm not sure I would have been able to focus for one last patient or not. I'm sure I could have done it, but I was glad for the break and the fact that I got to leave a half hour early.

I think it's pretty safe to say that I will never be applying for any jobs at Wildwood. I would never want to deal with this on a daily basis. And now, I have to go finish up working on my presentation for tomorrow. Wish me luck with that. I think my brain is too fried that I just keep avoiding it, but it really does need to get done. My goal is to get it cranked out during the commercial breaks of House and then go to bed by 9. Ha...like that will happen.

But seriously...what a way to start a long week. Blah...Tomorrow had better go better than this, especially with my presentation lasting all of lunch. Wish me luck.

Stop complaining

I'm currently still working on trying to get the motivation to work on my inservice presentation that I am giving on Tuesday. I'm giving it with another girl from my class, who is also on a clinical at Wildwood with a different instructor, and although it seems like this would be to my benefit, it is actually making it more difficult because we really have to coordinate how we are going to present this thing and she lives about 2 hours away from me. Awesome. We are talking about two different topics, but they are part of the same overall theory so I think it would be to our benefit to have our presentations be somewhat similar, however, I have no idea what her presentation is going to be like because she didn't have any of it prepared on Friday for us to go over. So I am basically just doing the best I can with mine and forgetting it. The sucky part is, I will probably actually get a worse grade on it because part of it involves putting together a brochure and her husband just happens to be a graphic designer who can help her with hers. I don't have any graphic designers in my life, so mine just looks pretty dull at the moment and I am trying to come up with ways to "spruce it up." I can't wait until this presentation is over and done with.

In non-physical therapy related news, I will probably be updating more often because of what I gave up for Lent. We are not supposed to brag about what we gave up, so I won't say, but if I can actually stick to what I have given up, I will have a lot of extra free time and will probably be going stir-crazy enough to update this blog almost every single day. I thought about giving up "complaining" but I'm not sure if I have the inner strength to try that one yet. Maybe next year. Our Pastor said we could have the thing we gave up on Sundays, but even at that, I don't think I could save all my complaining for Sundays, haha.

We had a couple of guys come to our church this morning to perform special music for us and speak to us. They did a really great job. It was pretty emotional actually. They spoke a lot about some things that really hit close to home...about losing loved ones and keeping your faith that you will be able to see them again someday. It made me miss my grandma and grandpa Ziegler and my aunt Linda a lot, but it also made me feel better because I know they are in a better place and someday we will all be together again. I know it probably sounds kind of cheesy, but I think about this a lot. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through my day is telling myself that I was put on this earth to help other people and make my grandparents and my aunt proud of me, even if they are not here on this earth to see it, I know they still see it. They are my inspiration.

A lazy day

Two...more...weeks...8 working days, 1 inservice presentation, 1 service project, 1 all day seminar (on a Saturday), and then I am done. I'm really going to miss the people I work with. The hectic schedule, not so much...

I really wish I was on a beach with a Margarita right now. I am so sick of this cold weather. It's pretty sad when the sun finally comes out and it gets up to 40 degrees and we are all saying how "nice" it is outside and cheering. This is pathetic. Spring needs to hurry up. Both for warmer weather and so I can finally see some daylight.

Today I am off to the big city of Wauseon to get my hair done. I'm not sure yet if I want to do something extreme or stay conservative. I'm thinking extreme. Maybe a new look will get me pepped up enough to get through the next 2 weeks. After my makeover, I'm heading to the school to watch my little cousins play some basketball. Should be a good time. After that, I refuse to do anything productive for the rest of the day. I am so burned out with studying and working on projects. I deserve a lazy day!

Sports medicine is starting to make me ill

We have been so busy at Wildwood this week that I feel like my brain is going to explode. Yesterday we saw 21 patients plus 3 new evals and I had the worst headache imaginable. On the plus side, the day went by super fast, because I barely had time to even glance at the clock. It was hectic.

Despite the fact that I'm really enjoying the outpatient setting, I am starting to realize that maybe sports medicine just isn't for me. I do like working with athletes and learning how to treat various types of sports injuries. However, I only like working with athletes who are over the age of 20. Teenage athletes are pretty much getting on my nerves to put it bluntly and their parents are getting on my nerves even more. I know that this is my specialty clinical and the reason I got my CSCS is because I really wanted to work with athletes, but I will give you just a few examples of why I am starting to change my mind about what I really want to specialize in.

• Athletes (the teenage ones) all come in with their cell phones and iPods. Now, I am not one to ever knock the use of cell phones and iPods. I have both and I use them regularly. I don't know what I would do without texting. However, teenage athletes 99% of the time feel the need to be texting throughout their therapy sessions and/or listening to their iPods so they are NEVER paying attention to what you ask them to do and you always have to either a) wait till they are done sending a text or b) shout out your instructions to get them to listen.
• Teenage athletes never want to use the correct form with exercises. They all think that faster is better and they are all just trying to get through their "workout" as fast as possible. They don't seem to grasp the fact that they are there for physical therapy, not a practice session.
• The parents of teenage athletes can be super pushy and rude. Case in point - we are seeing a 14 year old kid with Little League Shoulder. This is when the epiphysis separates in the throwing shoulder. It is a very serious injury and getting back to pitching too soon can cause serious damage. The problem here is, this kid is an outstanding pitcher. He has the potential to go pro someday and he and his mother know that. They are not at all interested in actually going through the appropriate progression of therapy. They also do not understand why we are working on core strengthening with him. I guess they do not understand that your arms are attached to your trunk and it's the entire upper body that's involved in throwing a ball, not just your arm. But whatever...So the past 2 times I've called this kid in from the waiting room, his mom has come back to the gym with him. The first time, she got on my CI's case about the core strengthening and basically told him that he should just work on her son's arm and forget the rest. The 2nd time (yesterday) I called the kid back and she came charging in behind him and told me basically that she didn't want me to see her son because they had waited all week to get an appointment with my CI. She wanted my CI to do an "assessment" for her son to see if he was ready to get back to pitching. Um ok....so that made me mad that she thought I was too much of an idiot to treat her son and it also made me want to shake the crap out of her and tell her that there is no way in heck that her son is ready to pitch again. So I get my CI and I just go start seeing our other patients. I see he is speaking to this woman and her son for a long time and getting frustrated. I hear the mom basically say how frustrated she and her son are that "PT isn't working." It's safe to say that I never ever want to work with parents like that who want to destroy their kid's potential pro career by pushing them too hard as a freshman in high school. You've got to be kidding me.
• Athletes whine and have the lowest pain tolerance imaginable. We have adults who've been through total joint replacements who work harder than an athlete with a sprained ankle. It's annoying.
• They are always late for their appointments or just plain don't show up. Our highest rates of No Shows are the athletes.
• There are only about a handful who actually are compliant with their home exercise program and it is very obvious.
• They are so disrespectful toward their parents. I evaluated two athletes this week who were completely rude and disrespectful toward their parents throughout the entire evaluation. They talk back, act like little snots, and one kid threw his sweatshirt at his mom and hit her in the face when I asked him to take it off so I could see his shoulder.

These are just a few of the reasons why I'm starting to question my choice to get into sports medicine. Don't get me wrong, I really do like it, but I find myself gravitating toward the patients who are older and more mature every single time we are double booked and I'm starting to get the hint from myself that maybe athletes just aren't my cup of tea.

T-minus 11 days

Oh how I wish I could just stay up late every night and watch the olympics for 2 weeks straight. Gone are those days...I just have to settle for the 2-3 hours that I may or may not be able to soak in at the end of the day.

Today I was reminded of just how glad I am that I am done with PT classes forever. During the 2nd year of PT school (which would have been last year for me), all students are required to take an elective. I obviously took the CSCS elective (and passed the test!), but one of the options is a sports medicine elective where you get to learn about all different types of sports injuries and how to treat them. Today, my CI was the guest lecturer for that elective so the students from the 2nd year class that are taking that elective came to Wildwood this afternoon at 4:30 to listen to his lecture. My CI asked me if I would like to sit in on it and I gladly said yes, because that meant I could give my mind a break for 2 hours and lay back and do a whole lot of nothing while he gave his 2 hour lecture. Well, wouldn't you know that he decided to give the lecture in a dark room where I just wanted to fall asleep and then ended up going over by a half hour, so we didn't even get to leave until 7pm. Let me just say that working 7:30am (leaving my house at 6:30am) and not getting home until almost 8pm is a LONG day...I guess I was meant to sit through that lecture just to be reminded of how glad I am that I am done with classes forever.

Speaking of stress, although we were done with patients at 4:30 today, it was probably one of the more hectic days on the schedule so far, especially since my CI is starting to have me be pretty much independent with the entire caseload. This means approximately 4 evals/day (each including about 10+ pages of paperwork...ugh) and approximately 18 other patients on top of that. If it weren't for the amazing people I work with, I would never make it through. I think some of the rehab aides are the only reason I keep my sanity.

All in all, I can still say that I'm glad I'm having this experience. I am getting my butt kicked daily. Some of the benefits of this are:

- I have more appreciation for any future job that I have in which I am only scheduled to see one patient at a time.

- Working 8-4:30 will seem like a vacation.

- I am finding the motivation to study for boards, based solely on the fact that this clinical has made me realize all of the information that I have yet to learn.

- If I ever become a clinical instructor in the future, I will have more understanding and compassion of what my students are going through.

- I am learning more on this clinical than I ever did in 3 years of PT school.

- I have made good friends at this clinical, and with any luck, will be able to keep in touch with them after the clinical is over.

- If I am so lucky to be offered a job within a 30 minute (or less) driving distance from home, I will take it in a heartbeat.

I love Wildwood, the people that work there, and the patients...but I am a) too tired to drive there any more days that I have to and b) not a big fan of the whole 2-3 (or sometimes 4) patients at a time scheduling so that half the time our patients aren't receiving the quality of care that they deserve...

11 more working days, one inservice presentation, and one service project until spring break and then Montpelier!

Ready, Set, Weekend!

Another weekend to relax...I am enjoying it :) As much as I have complained about my clinical, I do have to say that it is going by faster than any other clinical ever has. This is probably because 1) it's a sports medicine / orthopedic clinical which is exactly what I want to specialize in someday 2) I work four 10 hour days, so the one day off during the week makes the weeks seem shorter and 3) because it's wintertime and there's nothing better to do anyway!

I'm slowly but surely getting more and more confident in my ability to independently evaluate and treat such complex patients. Some of them are not so complex...for example, I'm pretty much an expert (slight sarcasm, but not much) when it comes to treating people for neck/back pain and I'm getting pretty good with shoulders and knees. Monday, I am evaluating a patient for a talus fracture. Week 1, I would have been totally intimidated and freaked out by this, because I'm sorry, but how in the heck do you fracture your talus? It is the "dumbest bone in the body" according to Gary Gray. Well...I'm currently excited about doing this evaluation and a) find out how this happened and b) see if I can successfully treat it.

I'm pretty proud of myself because I evaluated a patient about a week and half ago and successfully diagnosed her with a frozen shoulder (a/k/a adhesive capsulitis). This should be a pretty easy diagnosis, but it's the first time I've ever been able to diagnose a patient all on my own. Needless to say, I was pretty proud of myself. Not only have I diagnosed her, but I have been doing her treatments based on my very own treatment plan and it has worked. She is getting a lot better. It's very encouraging! Ok, yeah I've seen a lot of patients that I developed my own treatment plan for and they got better, but this is the first one that I actually diagnosed as something different than what her primary physician diagnosed her with (rotator cuff tendonitis) and treated. The fact that she's getting better with MY plan makes me feel like I might actually be smarter than I've given myself credit for.

I am also giving my CI my full respect again, even though I thought it was pretty insensitive to make me go in on Wednesday, because I can tell that he felt bad about it after the fact. Yesterday was a very good day. I decided that the best route is to be completely professional so I told him that I really wanted to make up for the day that I missed in some way, even if he didn't want me to come in over spring break, I would at least do an extra project or homework assignment. He said that he would give me just one more homework assignment to work on, because I have already done so many. I think that's pretty fair. So that's how I'm making up for my snow day. I really can't complain. Plus, I am going to luck out on Monday because we're apparently done with patients by 4pm so he can give a presentation to the 2nd year DPT students in the sports medicine elective, so I get to sit in during his presentation for the last 2 and a half hours of the work day. The best part is, they are making the students come to our facility, so I don't even have to drive to the school for this. Score.

In other news, I'm pretty excited that the olympics have started. My TV is pretty much glued to NBC for the next 2 weeks. I've also been inspired to start working out again seriously. I've been such a lazy bum. I finally bought my own physioball at Walmart today and pretty much killed my abs on it and I'm going to get back to biking until the snow melts and I can go outside and run again. I think I can handle the schedule of full-time work, studying for boards, and working out like a beast. But we'll see. The overall number one goal is to pass the boards. Then get in shape enough to look like a respectable physical therapist. Wish me luck.

Ignorance has got to be Bliss

I am so furious and I don't know if I will even get over it in the next 3 weeks. I am trying very hard to be "professional" but it's been pretty difficult to bite my tongue.

As I said in my last post, I called in to my clinical on Tuesday due to the snow storm that we got. Whenever we miss a day of our clinical, we are supposed to email our clinical coordinator at school and let her know. So, I thought I was doing the right thing and emailed her and let her know that I missed Tuesday due to the bad road conditions and that I did not feel safe enough to be on the road. Tuesday night, I received an email back from her basically saying that she understands my decision not to go in, but I need to formulate a plan with my CI to make up for my absence so that it doesn't seem "unprofessional" and that "now that the roads are cleared off" I should head to Toledo and stay with "someone" so that I can make it to my clinical the next day. Um....ok.....

So I replied back that we were currently under a level 2 snow emergency, as was Lucas county, and that I was not trying to be unprofessional in any way. I apologized for my absence, but tried to explain that I can not afford to total my car and have injuries/hospital bills right before graduation when I am going to have student loans to pay off and will NEED to be working as a physical therapist (pretty difficult to do if you're injured). I gave her plenty of notice that I would probably be missing yesterday (Wednesday) as well since the conditions had worsened.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at my normal time (ugh...5:30) and looked outside and saw that my car was completely stuck in a snowpile. I watched my neighbor out back trying to leave for work at 6:30 and get his car stuck in the snow-covered parking lot. I still got around for work like I normally would, but then saw on tv that there were all kinds of car accidents. As it got lighter, I saw that my car was definitely stuck. So I called in to my clinical site. The receptionist was very nice and said that was fine. She asked if I wanted to speak to my CI and I said yes so that I could get an idea of how he wanted me to make up the missed hours (whether it be making them up over spring break or coming in on a couple of Thursdays, etc.). He gets on the phone and I tell him that I am very sorry but I will not be able to make it in. He says, "At all?!?!" and I said, "well unless the conditions improve, I might be able to make it in this afternoon. My car is currently stuck." and he says, "well go out, get your car unstuck and GET HERE. The roads are fine once you get out of your area."

Ok...jerk. I was so mad, I about started to scream at him. But I just said ok...went out and spent 30 minutes getting my car out and headed toward Toledo. I had to drive 20 miles per hour the whole way there because the road was a sheet of ice that had been packed down by all of the snow plows. Every time a semi went by in the other direction, it sprayed so much snow that I could not even see where I was going. It was impossible to see the lines on the road to even know if you were ON the road, and if any of those semis going the other direction had jack-knifed, I would have been dead. Thanks Wildwood for making me risk my life to get to your stupid clinic. Of course, once I got to Toledo the roads were fine and completely clear because more traffic (that had been going slower and stopped for stop lights) had been on them to warm them up. They had also been salted.

I get to the clinic at 9:30 and the receptionist who had taken my phone call got a very surprised look on her face and said something about how my drive was. I was so shaken up by the drive that I had tears in my eyes. I told her it was horrible and walked back to the gym. I get to the gym and one of the ATCs asked me how my drive was (in front of my CI) and I just said, "I don't want to talk about it." I looked around and saw that both PTA students at the clinic had called off and no one had made them come in. At lunch-time, my CI and his wife (who also works there) sat down at the lunch table and his wife says really loud and pronounced (apparently for me to hear), "the roads are FINE. They're all completely clear." I wanted to be like "Yeah in f-ing TOLEDO. They are not clear in RURAL areas if you would watch the f-ing news." but I kept my mouth shut. Then, one of the other employees of the clinic came in and said that she had tried to call off and they made her come in as well. She lives near me and came in furious that the rehab director had made her come in. She started explaining (in front of my CI and his wife) how horrible the roads were and how she felt like she had really risked her life to come in. I agreed with her and we sat there talking about the horrible road conditions for about 30 minutes, while my CI just stared at us.

I later went back to the office and my CI came in behind me. I told him how sorry I was for missing Tuesday and that I would be more than willing to make it up the Monday of spring break. He told me not to worry about it at all and it wasn't a big deal. He said, "we're pretty understanding of that here." What a joke. No you're not. You're not understanding at all. You think everyone who works there lives within a 5 block radius and that it was no trouble at all to get there. You have no respect for my life and the fear I felt driving to your stupid clinic. I have no respect for my CI anymore. None. I know we are supposed to have professional relationships and I will keep it that way. I didn't argue with him at all and when he told me I could leave yesterday at 6 instead of 6:30, I didn't even attempt to ask if he was sure that was ok. I just took off. It was already getting dark and I knew my drive home was going to suck just as bad as it did getting there. Several people told me on my way out to "be careful!" in front of my CI. I'm sure he doesn't feel bad in the least for making me come in yesterday, but I for one have no respect for his attitude about it.

I get home and have an email from my clinical coordinator that made me feel a little bit better. She told me that she didn't feel I was being unprofessional at all, just to be sure I spoke with my CI about making up the hours. Well, I did that...But she also said to get used to the fact that not all clinics are the same and "life isn't fair." Um yeah, I know life isn't fair, but let me just say one thing....I'm pretty glad I have a "life" and I'd like to keep it. You're not going to tell me that "life isn't fair" when it comes to risking it to get to a clinical.

The best part of this whole scenario, at least 5 of my classmates with clinicals in Toledo did not go in yesterday. They all called in, except for one who's clinic called her and told her that they were closed for the day due to bad weather. Her clinic is the St. V's outpatient department, located about 2 miles away from Wildwood.

Needless to say, the next 3 weeks can not go by fast enough.

Snow Day

Well, it looks like we're in for the "blizzard of 2010" or something along those sorts that channel 11 news will call this. We're expected to get 12+" of snow between today and tomorrow. I woke up this morning at 5am to a tiny bit of snow, watched the news and there were no cancellations, went to get around for work, came back to the tv and there were tons of cancellations. I look outside and just in that 45 minutes time, we had over 2 inches of snow on the ground. I went out to my car and started to leave, got 1 mile out of town, and turned around. I could barely see where I was going and the snow was drifting all over the road.

I ended up calling off of work and they acted pretty mean about it. I feel horrible. I know it's a clinical and I really should be there unless it is a level 3 snow emergency, but I really did not feel safe driving there today. I know that these conditions are only going to get worse and most of our patients will probably cancel their appointments anyway. I suppose it would be different if I was in an acute care setting for my clinical, but I'm not, and I would be so bitter if I risked my life to get to work and then all the patients canceled anyway.

Needless to say, however, I do feel pretty horrible for calling off. Now that it's getting light out, it doesn't look as bad as it did when it was dark this morning. But they keep saying how it's going to get a lot worse and I, for one, did not want to get stuck in Toledo. I also didn't want a totaled vehicle right before graduation. I guess I will just pay the price of getting lectured about it and probably having to make the day up later on. I am by far not a baby when it comes to driving in bad weather. I can drive in some pretty crappy conditions, but this I refuse to drive in. Everyone can call me a baby and lecture me for my "lack of work ethic" all they want, but I have been on time every single day and willing to stay late every single night. If I want to play it safe and stay home, I should be able to do that without any receptionists getting snotty with me for calling in. Oh well...guess I'll just sit here and feel guilty all day!

putting things into perspective..

Today I went with a group of people from my church to serve food at a homeless shelter in downtown Toledo. I'm not trying to brag about my community service efforts or anything, but I am really glad I went to do that this afternoon. It taught me a lot about being more appreciative of the things I have in life and the opportunities I have been given. It also taught me a lot about patience and compromise.

The particular shelter that we went to was a Christian-based shelter and therefore does not receive any money from the government and relies totally on the generosity of others, particularly from various church groups who donate their time and money to help. In order to stay at the shelter and receive meals, individuals are required to abide by a particular set of rules (no handguns, no violence, no swearing, etc.) and attend church services.

We were told to arrive at the shelter by 4pm to serve food, so we left here at 1:30 to give ourselves enough time to set up and get everything ready. When we arrived, we were told that the first meal service isn't until 5pm. Since we arrived at 2:30, we had over 2 hours to get everything ready. When we were just about done getting set up, we saw another group of people walk in with large containers of hot food. We realized soon that they were from another church and the shelter had accidentally double-booked two churches to bring food on one night. Since the other church was from Sylvania and we were from farther away, they graciously let us stay and serve the food that we had brought and said that they would reschedule their time. This was the lesson in patience and generosity. I can imagine they probably weren't the most thrilled to have prepared all of that food just to realize that we were already there with food to serve.

We didn't serve food to any women or children in person. They have a separate house that they stay in that we sent food over to. We served food to about 80 men in person. Many of them thanked us several times and even came up to us after they ate to thank us again. They were all very polite and many of them refused seconds, even though we had plenty of food, stating that they did not want to appear "greedy." The whole experience left me wondering how I would act if I were in their shoes. Would I have taken the time to come up after the meal to thank the people who had brought food? Would I have been able to hold back on the amount of food I ate in an effort to save more food for others, even if I was hungry and cold? I honestly don't know...I can only imagine how difficult that must be for them. Here I have been complaining on and on about how stressful my life is and how hard it is to go through PT school when there are people out there who don't even have a place to live and have to rely on groups like ours just to have enough food to survive. This experience really put things into perspective for me. I thank God for all of the opportunities He has given me and all of the blessings He has provided for me. I may not have a lot of extra money to give to others, but I will give what I can of my time and effort to help those in need.

Just keep swimming...

Ah my much-needed day off....things are getting crazier and crazier by the day at Wildwood. While I watch the other PT students seeing one patient while their CIs see other patients, I have somehow been given the responsibility of trying to juggle the entire caseload, meaning I am attempting to see 2-3 patients at a time all day long, while squeezing in last minute evaluations over my lunch break. These 11-12 hour days 4 days a week are starting to exhaust me. While I'm glad for so many learning opportunities, I think it's just a teeny tiny bit unfair to expect me to handle the entire caseload of a PT who's been working there for over 5 years and has traveled with the olympic team to treat athletes at the games. I mean, come on..yesterday during lunch we had to squeeze in an evaluation for a gymnast who fell on her head and was having sternum pain. Um...I can honestly say that I NEVER learned in school how to treat sternum pain. Seriously. So now I will probably fail the CPI (my midterm grades that I will be receiving tomorrow), because I had absolutely no clue where to even begin with this person. Tomorrow I'm evaluating a patient who has had achilles tendon repair. Do you think we've discussed that in school? of course not. So it's starting to get just a little overwhelming trying to evaluate these people and treat 2-3 other people at the same time and do it over and over again all day long.

To top it off, I haven't even started my service project or presentation that I am giving in a few weeks. My CI has given me homework on patello-femoral pain that involves me having to read 10 articles that are all about 10 pages long and then answering 15 questions on them by Monday. I still have to fill out my own CPI today, and trying to grade myself is really going to suck. To make it even better, something in the dry winter air this season has made the skin under my fingernails pull away from my fingernails, leaving me with bloody fingers where they crack and bleed, so all of my fingers are bandaged and I can hardly type or write. Awesome.

But...with that said, I am still trying to have a better attitude. I keep looking at all of this as a great learning experience and as much as it sucks, it will make me a better PT. If I ever get a job in a low-key setting, I will appreciate it 10x more than I would have before. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that I actually pass my CPI tomorrow and don't leave crying over the fact that my CI thinks I am at "beginner" level. I really don't want to have to email our clinical coordinator and explain to her why my CI thinks I'm a total idiot.