As life goes on: October 2010

Do you ever have those small things happen and think to yourself that you want to remember them forever? I definitely do. The sweet things that make life worth living when it's hard and those small things that make the world such an adventure. I'm just brainstorming some of them now, thought I'd share.

The other day I was standing in the hall in the clinic and I heard on of the OT's say to a child. "H, you got an H. H is for fantastic"...it took someone else telling her to realize that, maybe "H" isn't for "fantastic"

I swam out into the ocean yesterday and there was a whole group of pelicans that were feeding. I got to swim up to about 30 feet away, but was afraid to go further, perhaps pelicans can be vicious, I don't know. It was so cool to see them close up and even cooler was that there were multiple schools of fish swimming around and a whole bunch of them would jump out at once.

There's a boy at my clinic who is severely disabled. He gets very agitated and screams (he can't really talk so that's how he communicates his distress). The Itsy Bitsy Spider is his favorite song. At least half the time he calms down IMMEDIATELY upon the start of the song. The thing is...do you know how many times you can sing itsy bitsy sider in an hour? Neither do I, but it's a whole lot. It's gets old after about...2-3 times. So, the other day my coworker started singing Hark the Herald Angel Sing. He likes it even more than itsy bitsy. Go figure. It's nice to have two songs.

The other day while we were treating this boy, he was especially upset. He was sitting in a small chair and I was sitting on the floor beside him. He was screeching really loud, so I started screeching back at him. He stopped abruptly and looked at me, then moved his face so it was right in front of mine, almost touching my nose, turned his head a bit, and grinned this precious grin. He made eye contact with me the whole time. I was still screeching until I couldn't help it and I bust up laughing. Kids can be so funny sometimes.

When I had friends here for labor day, they lost my frisbee thing (one of the ones that is just a ring, not a full frisbee). It was no big deal, it cost me 2 bucks or something, but they lost it in the ocean. Today as I was walking down the beach, I saw a lost frisbee ring thing, just sitting there and thought to myself, there it is! It came back. Lost and now found. I decided not to pick it up, but for some reason I just loved finding it on the beach.

There is a little girl in my clinic who is near and dear to my heart. She has speech issues so she can't say my name "Nicole" (it's what I go by at work). So, instead, she calls me "Cole". I find it truly adorable. Probably my favorite nickname ever! When she comes in, she has 3 hours of therapy, speech, the occupational, then physical. Every time she comes in and sees me she says "Cole, play with me" or asks "Play with me Cole". I always tell her I will when it's my turn. This week, I was sitting in the front office during her first two hours of therapy and I could hear her in the back saying "play with Cole", "I want to play with Cole". The OT tried to get her to say "I want to play with Heather", but no she wanted to play with Cole. I shouldn't love it so much, but I totally do.

A few weeks ago, my CI (clinical instructor) told me that one of the boys we were treating was trying to ask if I was going to come play with them. He got a little confused though and asked "is Kinole going to play with us". She said he paused and thought like he knew something wasn't quite right about that, but couldn't put his finger on what. I love it. Another nickname. "Kinole"

There is a patient in the clinic who I don't treat whose name is Nicole. She doesn't like me. It really bothers her that we have the same name. There have been two different times that someone has brought it up to her "hey do you know what her name is? It's Nicole, just like you". She just stares at me in this very disturbed way and tries to avoid the subject and me. Makes me laugh every time.

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but those have been on my mind.