My sister called me her BFF in a Myspace survey! She loves me! It makes me happy, but I don't understand then, why she doesn't listen to my advice! Geeezus! Oh well, at least she thinks of me that way :)
I started my 25 clinical observation hours today. It was super duper fun! I had to dress "business casual", but everyone else was in maroon scrubs. I felt kind of out of place, but I can't wait till I get to wear my own scrubs :) I also have to wear a neon pink name tage. But I put it on my Wooster lanyard, so it's cooler ;) I saw five kids today. 3 of them were actual language and getting speech therapy, and the other two were both around 2 months old and were getting a sort of swallowing analysis. I learned that today too, that SLP's work with swallowing as well as speech. I guess it's because it all involves some of the same parts of the mouth or something.
So the kids who were getting speech therapy, one was a cute little boy who had problems with his "wh-" questions. The SLP would ask "What do you use a spoon for?" and he'd answer "At my dad's house." He was shy at first, but then they pulled out the huge lego blocks, and he warmed up. The second boy had cerebral palsy, but only on his left side which I've never seen before. He was so hyperactive! Oh my gosh. He was a little unintelligible, but I figured out most of what he said. He also said something about going to jail...I don't know what that's all about. The last one had speech therapy at the same time that he was having occupational therapy. He was in a wheelchair, and was asleep when he first came in. When he woke up though, he was a hoot! I'm not sure what he had, but he had ankle braces on, and his occupational therapy goal was to be able to go up and down steps. They have little step stools for him to step up onto and off of, and I felt so happy when he got it done. He was also working on the "wh-" questions, and they incorporated me by having him ask me "What do you want to build?" "What do you like?".
The other two kids were very young (both around 2 months) and maybe had swallowing difficulties. The first one was a little girl in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). She was abused by her parents, she was a sad case. It broke my heart to see her, and she was so cute. The SLP and the OT (occupational therapist) checked to see how her sucking and latching on were, and also how her swallowing was. They ordered for her to have a barium modify. The second child also had a barium modify. He was a premie, so he was bound to have some type of problem. His parents were both hispanic, and only his father spoke english. This showed me that minoring in spanish might not be that bad of an idea after all. I just need to study harder. Anyway, the SLP's fill a bottle with a barium liquid, which shows up on an x-ray. They make a bottle of thick mixture, and one of a more thin mixture. Then they set the baby up next to the x-ray and start feeding him. The x-ray makes a video of how the baby is swallowing and it shows if he's aspirating the liquid or not. That means that the liquid or food is going into the airpipes. This baby was apspirating the thinner liquid, but not the thicker one, so the SLP's reccommended that they feed him thicker things for now. Since his mom only spoke spanish, they found a doctor who is Cuban, and was bilingual. It was really cool to watch him talk with her. It was also really cool to watch the barium and see where it goes down. Your eye kind of needs to be trained to see it, but I found myself being able to do it.
This is a Modified Barium Swallow x-ray, but it's in an adult. In a child, that long bone going down the throat isnt' able to be seen since it hasn't developed yet.
I liked the therapy clinic. There is a jungle room that the kids really like and then there are about three or four smaller rooms that they do their speech therapy in. The SLP's desks are small and cubby-like. I'll compare them to IS carrels. But I think I could really get used to it there. I also found an SLP, Kristen, who graduated from Wooster! She started asking me questions about Lowry, it was funny.
I don't think I'll write about every single day that I'm there, I'm not sure if I should, kind of patient confidentiality thingy, and I don't know if I'm violating that.....but I just feel like talking about it. Oh yeah, I need 25 hours, and the sessions usually only last a half hour, so right now, I have 2 hours and 45 minutes. I have the feeling I'm going to be going back for another week after this one.
I went over Katie's this weekend and we started planning our room. I'm sooooo excited! I just want to go back!! I've also started reading "My Sister's Keeper" since the movie is coming out. It's really good. I don't think I really have much else to talk about. I'm sure I'll update kind of frequently this week.
Much Love!!
