Thats a Nice Story

Well, I haven't blogged for a while and so now is a good as time as any to post something. By the way, for the singles and singles of individuals that looked at my vacation pictures, I will finish putting them up on myspace sometime soon.

So far my program... sucks. It is different than my previous University years and a lot of people feel that we haven't done anything concrete yet. We've just got special words we like to throw around such as "enabling", "client centered", and "holistic." However, I remember being told by others to just wait for that first field placement. After that, you suddenly spring to life. Everything clicks and from there its a whole lot more smiles than before. Hm... I guess I better make sure I get all my requirements for that first placement. Oh yeah, I stay in Edmonton for my first one in October.

The most interesting classes I've had so far are when patients have visited. Actually, the first one was a standardized patient named "Millie." A standardized patient is actually just an actor or actress playing the role of a patient. Sort of like Kramer when he played the part of a ghonorhea (sp??) patient from Seinfeld. Anyways, she basically played the part of a stroke patient and came into the class so our instructor could perform an assessment. It was pretty neat and the actress did a really good job. she even cued our instructor to remember that in her stroke case she could only hear from the left ear.

The next visitors were a very nice, humourous couple. It is kind of a sweet story because they met in Rehab. One of them has Multiple Sclerosis and the other one has a brain injury after being struck head on by a vehicle. These events and their meeting occurred way back in the late 1980's. I'm not going to mention too much about them, other than that they seem to have a high zest for life. They love their independence and wouldn't trade their lives for anyone elses. For some reason all I could think is that Hollywood couldn't produce a script that could touch their story. There is no doubt in my mind that the whole class loved having their presence. I'll add one last thing that I really admired about their relationship. They seemed to be able to talk to each other about anything and I guess they've learned in their way of life not to take anything for granted.

It seems like a shame to just give them only a paragraph, but I think I may be seeing them in future classes. Alright, thats all for now. GG o_O