New city, New job.

I finally have the internet and TV up and running here in "my" new house. It was a long week without any connection to the outside world beyond my clinical! It was quite the transition to go from checking my Facebook page every 15 minutes to not checking it for 3 days at a time, but I managed.

I'm settling in here pretty good. It helps to be busy with my clinical and not just laying around doing nothing all day long. I have been a bit homesick at times, but not as much as I thought I would be. The commute to Perrysburg is only 15 to 25 minutes depending on the day, which saves me so much gas money. I could also really get used to having a 2 car garage and huge bathroom and a dishwasher and a refrigerator that makes its own ice.

My clinical is going ok so far. It was going really good for the first few days. My CI seemed to be really understanding about how intimidating it can be to start a new clinical and get used to all the new documentation and computer system. Yesterday, however, was NOT good day. I will back up though and just give a little bit of background info as to how my week has gone.

First of all, I am my CI's first student ever. He's been out of school for just a couple of years and he's been working in outpatient for only 4 months. He is foreign and English is not his first language (although he speaks it very well and technically is an American citizen), so there is a cultural difference between us. I am not sure if he is Italian or Romanian, but I think it would be rude to ask, so I haven't. He is very knowledgeable and excited to share his knowledge. He also really really really really really really really likes to talk.

One of my pet peeves is interrupting people or being interrupted. Thus, I try not to ever interrupt anyone. This means that my CI talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and I never get a word in edgewise. He also jumps from topic to topic and subject to subject in the middle of sentences. He is also very blunt. So, this is pretty much how every day goes: I get to work. I start putting my stuff away and he starts talking to me, "Hi, how are you? Good. Don't be nervous. All this information will come to you. I just want to share this with you. Let's put this CD in the computer for you to watch. Can you print out today's schedule? Oh, here, let me print this article for you first. Don't worry about reading all of this at once. It will be too much for you. Did you get a chance to read that article I gave you yesterday? Here is this book I brought for you to look at. Ok so let's look at the spine and I will show you what I mean by an ERSL. You would treat it by - Oh our next patient is here." We will go see the patient while he continues to talk to me like this and I can't focus on ANYTHING because he is constantly changing the subject and confusing the heck out of me. I just have to keep reminding myself that I am his first student ever.

Another thing - My CI things that every single patient has psychological issues. One of the doctors at the clinic studies the psychological issues associated with chronic pain. He made the mistake of telling my CI some of his thoughts about it one day and now my CI thinks that every single patient who comes to our clinic has psychological issues due to their pain. Thus, we are not allowed to empathize with any patients, because it feeds into their psychological issues.

Also, My CI uses 99.999999999% manual therapy for his treatment and 0.000000001% therapeutic exercise. Thus, I am learning absolutely nothing about how to progress a therapeutic exercise program, but I am learning manual therapy techniques that I have never even heard of before. Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing. My CI does get results with his patients and he does an excellent job helping them to get better fast. But, I feel like we aren't doing anything that I learned in class and if I ever get a job somewhere that I feel like using therapeutic exercise to treat my patients, I will have no idea what to do since I didn't do it on my clinical. This clinical is technically supposed to be "outpatient orthopedics" and it is actually "outpatient manual therapy." I'm not knocking it. I think it works. I just wish I could learn a little bit more about ther ex also.

My main complaint - My CI treats me like I don't know how to do anything. It's true, I don't know how to do all the manual therapy that he does. But I DO know how to take a patient's history during an initial eval. He asked me to do that yesterday and then interrupted me at least 50 times in front of the patients to ask questions that I hadn't gotten to yet. It made me look really stupid in front of the patients and I was really embarrassed. He says he was doing that to "help me out" but I did not need his help with that and I told him so. He told me to not be so defensive and that he would just leave me alone with the patients from now on. At first I felt bad about that, but the more I think about it now, I don't feel bad. I did not appreciate being treated like an idiot in front of the patients and I would rather work with them on my own than have him sitting behind me interrupting me every 2 seconds to ask a question that I was going to ask next. Ugh. It was horrible. Although, I will say, that after that happened yesterday, he spent the rest of the day praising my documentation and the day did end well. So maybe it won't be so bad after all. I could go into so much more detail about my concerns and issues with this clinical, but I think for now it's best to just leave it at that. I should just be appreciative of the fact that I am finally working with outpatients who do not have IVs and bed pans and that it only takes me 20 minutes to get to work every day. Yep, I'll just leave it at that.

Scared and Nervous...

Well, I'm making the big move tomorrow (as long as it doesn't rain). I am pretty scared. I shouldn't be, because it's only 45 minutes away from home and I am just being a big baby. But, I know I'm going to be homesick. There are two types of people who grow up in Fayette - those than can't wait to leave and those that never want to leave. I am the second type. But...the time has come for me to change. No one in their right mind would turn down an opportunity like this. It would have been so foolish to say no. I know I can make this work. However, my first week or so will be without tv or internet...talk about lonely. I'm going back to the dark ages of radio for a while.....or several DVDs played in a row.

Things I am telling myself to alleviate my homesickness:

• I will only be 45-50 minutes away from home.
• My cousin and his family live 30 seconds away.
• I will be closer to my PT friends and can finally hang out with them!
• I will be so much closer to my next clinical.
• Although my cat will not like moving, she did used to live in this house, so maybe she will get re-acquainted with it faster (yes I am really worried about my cat...I love her so much). Plus she will have more room to run around and play.
• If I find a job in May that is closer to home, I will just move back.
• My brother said I can call him if anything goes wrong and he will take care of it, so I don't have to!
• I will be living in a safe neighborhood with old rich people as my neighbors.
• Kroger is one block away.
• I will be able to park both of my cars in the garage for the wintertime.
• My mom has a key and will come visit me (or at least she says she will).
• I can come home and visit my mom whenever I want to (or at least she says I can).
• My refrigerator has an ice maker on the outside.
• I will have a dish washer (although I do not know how to use one).

So, these are all the things I will be telling myself over and over again for the next couple of months while I get used to such a big move. I could have made a list of all the things I'm scared about or all the things that will make me homesick, but that will just make me sad, so I am going to focus on the positives. Plus, Thanksgiving is coming up and I will definitely need a big family get-together about that time. So, since I won't have the internet for a while after tomorrow (as long as it doesn't rain and I do get moved), wish me luck and the next time I post, I should be settled in.

New Endeavors

Well, I never thought I would be doing this. Never in a million years. But I received an offer this week that I just couldn't turn down. It's not going to be easy to do this at all, but I am moving out of Fayette. It's going to be so hard. But, my brother hasn't been able to sell his house in Waterville (which is just outside of Toledo) and he called me this week to see if I'd be willing to live there so that he doesn't have to leave it empty for another winter. As much as I want to stay in Fayette, I think it's the right thing for me to move into his house. It's so much closer to my remaining clinicals, so I won't have to drive so far in the winter. Plus, I park my Mustang there in the winter-time anyway and this will give me a 2-car garage to park both of my cars in all winter long. And my cat will have more room to run and play! Plus, I do have a cousin who lives just down the road, so I won't be in Waterville all by myself (although it will still probably seem that way sometimes).

So...this gives me a lot of planning to do in a very short period of time. My clinical starts on Monday, and after that, I'll be working Monday through Friday, with no option to take days off. Somehow, I have to get moved and get my cable and internet set up ASAP since 99% of the assignments that I have to do for my clinical are due by email or WebCT. I have to figure out if I can even get moved this weekend or if I need to wait and move in next weekend. I have to figure out how I am even going to get all of this stuff packed up and ready to move in the first place. My mind is kind of spinning right now with all the decisions to be made.

Although I'm pretty sure that I am doing the right thing, I'm still pretty scared about it. The house is in a really good neighborhood, so I'm not scared because of that, but I am scared to leave my family in Fayette. I just have to keep telling myself that I will only be an hour away and that I can come back whenever I need/want to. I know I am going to be a bit lonely. I'll probably even cry. But I can't keep driving so far every day and I do want to help my brother out (although I think, in reality, he is helping me out more than I am helping him). This is a huge step for me. HUGE. You wouldn't think moving 50 miles away would be that big of a deal, but it definitely is!

I am the talus. I am the stupidest bone in the body, but I'm still smarter than Joe Girardi.

I'm finding it so difficult to concentrate on any type of review that I wanted to do before this next clinical. It's so tempting to just lay around and do nothing! About all I can make myself do is color in my anatomy coloring book and read about 3 paragraphs at a time in my orthopedics book. Ugh....I need to get motivated!

I finally got my hair cut and colored to cover up all the gray hairs that school gave me. Well, the girl who did my hair said that I only had one gray hair, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better about it, ha. I was pretty happy though because I finally found someone who can actually cut, highlight, and style my hair. For example, highlights do not always have to be blonde. Finally I found someone who realized this. Also, just because my hair is wavy does not mean I want it to be that way. If I came in with it straightened, I want to leave with it straightened. It's about time someone took the time to actually style my hair like I want it done and not just scrunched up because that's "easier." I know these things sound petty, but when you have been disappointed with hair cuts and highlights for 27 years, it's kind of nice to actually find someone who does it right.

Not a whole lot else has happened so far this week...my Yankees lost yesterday, leaving me feeling pretty bummed out for the rest of the night. They better make a serious comeback tonight. It would be nice if at least one of my sports teams became world champions. It hasn't happened since the Colts won the super bowl like 3 years ago. That being said, I better go attempt to review some more before the game comes on tonight.

PT school = gray hair

I have thoroughly been enjoying my time off before the start of my next clinical. My mom and I spent a day shopping in Ft. Wayne and it was very much needed. I sold my elliptical a week ago (I couldn't use it anymore because of my knees) so I had extra shopping money. It's always a good trip when you have to walk back to the car to unload your heavy bags halfway through. The only sad part of the day was getting into Indiana on the way there and seeing snow covering people's parked cars. Ugh. I'm really not ready for snow. I even had to buy a new winter coat, which was on sale from $210 to $130 :) so at least I saved money.

I found out last week that my next clinical did get moved to Perrysburg. I wasn't thrilled, because that's even farther away. But...it's just off of I75, so it might not be as bad of a drive since I can avoid all the city traffic. It is going to cost me $150 in turnpike tolls though, that is only if I get around to purchasing the sensor thing for the EasyPass so I save 50 cents each way. I also found out my hours. Mon/Wed/Fri I work 10-6:30 and Tues/Thurs I work 7-3:30. I'm not too sure how I feel about these hours yet. For example, Monday nights, I won't get home until after 8pm and then I'll have to get up by 5am to get back there on Tuesday. But, I will get to be home somewhat early on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we'll see how it goes. The only thing I really am looking forward to is finally doing a clinical in an outpatient orthopedic setting. No more IVs and gaping hospital gowns. Plus, my CI seems pretty cool (at least from when he talked to our class), so it should be a good experience.

I'm planning to spend this upcoming week preparing for the clinical and studying up on a lot of my anatomy (since my CI said "know your anatomy" at least 20 times in the class lecture) and orthopedics. I'm also going to finish up my resume and get my cover letters ready. Even though it sounds like we won't officially be able to start working until June (if and when I pass my boards), I'm ready to get out there and find a job and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need an early start since our economy is so crappy. I also have a hair appointment on Monday to cover up all of the gray hairs that inevitably started coming in a couple of weeks ago :( I knew I'd probably start getting gray hairs soon, and probably all the stress from the last few weeks of class didn't help. I'm not sure what all I am going to do with my hair yet, but you can bet, I won't just sit back and let it all turn white and think that it's "pretty."

It's Official

I am now "officially" done with all of my coursework. Scholarly project presentations were last night. I gave a poster presentation, which means that I stood by a poster I made that displayed an overview of my entire project. Since my project was insanely complicated and ridiculous, most people just read the title and kept walking, which was fine by me! I think I was only asked about 5 questions total the entire night. I'm a little mad that I had to give my poster to the school to have it displayed at main campus. I really don't think that UT "owns" my poster, considering the fact that it's MY work, but whatever. I'm also annoyed because not all of my credentials are listed with my name on the poster (because my advisor wouldn't let me put them). That's kind of a slap in the face. You work so hard to get those credentials and then they're not even listed with your work. Oh well...it's over.

I'm a little nervous about my upcoming clinical. It starts in a couple weeks and I still have no idea what is going on. Last night at the presentations, one of the PT's who came as a guest speaker for class came up to me and told me that supposedly St. Luke's sent out an email asking someone to be my CI and no one responded so he said he'd do it. The problem is, he doesn't work in the Maumee office (I could be wrong, but I think he works in Perrysburg, which is even farther). So he told me he would email me and that I should call St. Luke's to get everything figured out. Well, I called this morning and they said they would call me back. Of course, no one has called me back, so I really have no idea what's going on or where my clinical is even going to be. This could have been solved very easily by putting me at the Swanton office like I requested, but oh no..everything's got to be as complicated as possible. Awesome.

So until then, I am just going to enjoy the next week and a half of days off by relaxing and trying not to stress out too much. I probably will do some orthopedics review since I feel pretty intimidated by it all. I might even watch the Gary Gray lumbar spine dvd today if I get really bored. Or I might just take a break from physical therapy for today and watch some mindless TV.

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Tomorrow is scholarly project presentations. It's "officially" the end of classes, since our class will be leaving campus for good tomorrow night. I have a feeling it will be bittersweet. I'm sad that we won't be sitting in class together anymore. It made me feel like I was in high school again, having a small class and knowing everyone in it. Now, it's over. I'm relieved that the busy-work and paper writing is over. I'm also relieved that I will never have to deal with a certain instructor ever again. I'm nervous, yet excited, about the upcoming clinicals and finding a job.

We had a meeting today to discuss everything that we would need to know about registering to take the boards and laws exams. It was a little frustrating that our program director is going to be out of town on the day that they want us to come back and discuss any changes that we want made to the program (although she has a good excuse for being gone). It is frustrating to know that none of my suggestions will be given to the person that they actually should be given to. And it's a little ironic that they suddenly decided not to do formal exit interviews this year. Supposedly we are going to be given some forms to fill out that we can write suggestions on, but I'm not holding my breath.

I spent the afternoon today meeting with my SP advisor to finally get my poster finished for tomorrow. Of course then the printer ran out of ink before we could print it. More ink is supposed to come tomorrow and I'm supposed to be able to pick up my poster right before the actual presentations. There's nothing like leaving everything until the very last possible minute. I hate procrastinating and I have not enjoyed being advised by someone who does. But....tomorrow it's over.

Other than school (and the lessons I have learned in the past 2 weeks about dealing with difficult people), I just learned a very valuable lesson about living in a small town. I really wish that yesterday's sermon at church had come a couple of weeks earlier so that I could have learned the lesson of "not gossiping." Now I'm paying for it. Basically, I overheard someone bad-mouthing one of my friends on Saturday and it made me pretty mad. So I told someone about how mad I was about it and that person told my friend. Now my friend is making a HUGE deal about it and getting me involved. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be disliked by many people now for it. Just when I thought that everyone in this town had finally stopped bad-mouthing ME, they're going to start again...all because I got angry over someone's gossip and then gossiped myself about it. So...the lesson to be learned here is to NOT repeat things that other people tell you, even if they are not true and they make you angry. Just keep them to yourself. I'm pretty sure I'll be paying for this one for quite some time. And just when I thought that I was going to have a nice long relaxing vacation....ugh....