Week 6&7

Week 6/7

I know I haven't been keeping up with my blogs the past couple of weeks. A lot has happened and I have been so busy. Every night before I pass out I think "oh no I didn't write my blog...again". I know how happy new blog posts make Mickey, so I'm sorry.


Weeks 6 and week 7 were a little choppy. I felt like one day we would have clients from 7am to 7pm, and then the next we would have nothing. Clients have continued to cancel on us at an irritating rate. Now we are making sure we call people a few days before to remind them, and then within 24 hours of their appointment. We have caught a lot of early cancelations this way, instead of traveling out to their home to learn they can't meet. I'm still really enjoying my time at the Lighthouse and even though the schedule is erratic I like, it keeps things fresh and interesting.

I have really started to notice a difference in teaching teens and adults. I know I have stated this before, but recently it’s been really bad. I have several clients in their 20s who do not want to work on O&M skills. I have one student who gets disoriented, so I check his orientation by asking him where one of his landmarks is. When he is way off I correct him and he immediately snaps at me saying "I know, I know." After hearing that so many times it's tempting to say 'if you know, then why are we here?’ That would be very unprofessional so instead in this last lesson when he stated giving me the "I know" I simply let him go, using all of the things he thought he knew. This reminded me SO much of our mobility class. One of us would act very stubborn and convinced we knew where we were going, so Mickey let us go. I got the same result with my student as I had in the mobility class. My student slowly realized what he thought he knew was incorrect. At this point I prompted him to throw away what he thought he knew and use what the environment was telling him (I think it was a direct quote from Mickey). This is a skill I am so glad I learned, not the simple understanding of what a technique is and how to teach it, but an understanding of how to step back, and rebuild orientation based on environmental cues. It's something I use with my client's almost every day.

I have been at the lighthouse long enough now that I have seen some client's several times, and now I'm beginning to enjoy watching their progress. I have one student who rode the bus this week virtually alone. I rode the bus with her, but sat far away from her and did not provide any information or reminders while riding the bus or transferring at the plaza. I'm excited that I have been responsible for her bus lessons and now she's basically ready to do it alone.
I worked on street crossing with a cline this week who was totally petrified to cross streets. In our most recent lesson she did so well, and I could see her confidence and enthusiasm grow.
I was also really proud of another student this week. We are working on bus travel with her too, and normally we try to motivate the younger clients to use the bus by finding a location that interests them. I suggested going to a pizza place, the mall or fun station. The student very maturely suggested she learn a route from her home to her counselor's office instead. I was struck by her maturity and drive to better herself.

I had one terrifying moment with a student this past week. This student is a bit impatient, and thinks that crossing the street in front of her home is 'no big deal'. I've tried telling her that it is a pretty big deal, cars come around a curve in the road just before passing her home, so they cannot see her until it's almost too late. It is a reasonably safe location to cross in a small residential area, but she has to make sure it is totally silent in both directions. She typically will approach the road, listen for about 2 seconds and declare it's safe. However, several times there are been cars approaching. I'll point out the car, then she says she hears it and as soon as it passes her she says it's safe. Many times another car is coming, but she thinks what she's hearing is the sound of the car that just passed her. This is why I stress total silence. Last week she approached the road, identified a car and as soon as it passed her said it's safe and IMMEDIATLY stepped out. Normally she said its safe, then I confirm, and only then do we step out. I think this morning she was feeling grumpy and irritated we were doing another early lesson, so she stated it was safe and didn't wait for me to confirm. I was double checking to confirm it was safe when I saw the car come around the curve in the road and head straight for the student. I yelled 'no!' and put my hand on her shoulder and puller her back. The car saw her and had slowed down, and she really was no more than 2 feet into the road, but still it scared me so bad. I firmly told her how important it was to listen for total silence and that while she is still working on the skills to wait for me to tell her to go. She blew it off and acted like I was over exaggerating. I wanted her to truly understand how dangerous what she just did was, so I told her several times that she could have been seriously hurt or even died. She eventually said she understood and would try to listen more. Street crossing can be so frustrating. I have clients like this one who think nothing of it to step out into traffic, and then others who would wait thought 50 light cycles before crossing. It's my job to get them somewhere in the middle.

This week I worked with an adult client who is learning cane skills from scratch. I got to give her her first cane and show her how to grip it. It felt like a rite of passage, like there should have been some kind of ceremony. She was so eager to learn, we covered the basics of diagonal technique, going up and down stairs and two point touch. She did very well with everything. Two point touch was challenging for her, but after walking to and from her mailbox I noticed her pausing and correcting when she was out of step. I was so proud of her I wanted to give her a hug or a high five. We told her to practice so I'm very excited to see what her skills are like next week.

Things are going good. This coming week will also be a little crazy because I'm going up to D.C. for an interview. I'll do my best to keep this updated!