pre-Thanksgiving

So I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is nearly here! My time in Two Harbors is going by so quickly... I am looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving as there is always a lot for which to be thankful. The pumpkin or pecan pie doesn't hurt either. :)

This week in my PT life won't be too much out of the ordinary. Today I helped out with a pool treatment for a little guy. He did well with the swimming and kickboard activities initially, but then had some behavior issues. He likes to sit in the sauna (not on) when he becomes overstimulated, but it was not available today. We thought he was tired and then too focused on the sauna, so he ended a little early today.

I am able to take over more of a patient load in the clinic, so that is exciting. I am still a little limited by Medicare guidelines, but we are finding patients that I can treat. The best part of it all (in my mind anyway) is that one of my patients is post-op a total knee replacement--and she has sutures that need to be removed! So on Wednesday I get to remove sutures in the clinic along with my CI. Tomorrow should be a "normal" day in the schools, and I am hoping that the kids aren't too ramped up for Thanksgiving break. I spent less time with the kids last week because of the various evals and meetings, so I am looking forward to participating more in the treatment. One of the kids has made some good progress in following directions and trying new gross motor skills, so that's been exciting.

This is a bit early, but Happy Thanksgiving!

A hectic week...

I know it is only Wednesday, but I feel like this week has been crazy... I have done quite a bit of driving around, which is probably contributing to that. I've had some great opportunities within the schools (hence the driving) to participate in IEP/eval meetings and various testing procedures. I was able to do more testing with the BOT and the Peabody. Tomorrow I have another IEP/eval meeting. At the eval meeting on Tuesday, I was able to speak with the parents regarding the results of their son's gross motor testing. I really enjoyed being able to participate on that level. It was also fascinating to listen to the other professionals and what their testing and observations had shown. I am glad I picked PT as my profession, but sometimes I really like the sensory world of OT. The little guy discussed on Tuesday has some significant visual issues and has difficulty tracking objects and paying attention in a visually stimulating environment. He does some work with the Minnesota Vision Institute (or something like that) in the Cities, and I liked hearing about his exercises that he does to improve his vision. Poor vision can easily contribute to poor gross motor skills, and learning about those deficits helped explain what we found in PT. Today I stopped in the special ed classroom to pick up another boy for the Peabody testing, and the boy discussed on Tuesday saw me and got all excited because he wants the PT and I to come for him. Then he had to ammend his statement and say that we had to come next week because he would be gone tomorrow. And that is why I like working with kids. Ask me again tomorrow, though because behavior can change that statement...

As for life in the clinic, I have done a few more evals and have taken a few more patients on my caseload. Some of that was interrupted with the running around for the school evals and meetings, but hopefully I can pick that up again on Friday and next week. I can't believe that I have only one more month left up in Two Harbors! It's gone by quickly. I feel like I am learning a lot and now I just have to reinforce it with studying at home. Unfortunately things like updating my blog interrupt those plans... One of the patients that I will hopefully be treating is post knee replacement, so it's interesting to see a patient starting outpatient PT for treatment because I deal with a lot of knee replacement patients at the hospital on the weekends.

Glensheen

Today I toured the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth. It was owned by the Congdon family and was built in the early 1900s. After graduating from college, Chester Congdon passed the Minnesota bar without attending law school and then made a series of wise investments (many involving mining, but one included some land in the Yakima Valley in Washington, and that orchard now makes Tree Top apple juice). He had Glensheen built for his family--and the house is pretty incredible. It's ornate and somewhat lavishly decorated, but it is not overdone. I think there's something like 39 rooms in the house, and it was wired for electricity before electricity was common, and it also had a central vacuum. The house and the family were well known in the Duluth and Minneapolis/St. Paul areas, but they became nationally known after the 1977 murder of heiress Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse. Apparently Elisabeth's daughter is back on trial again now, but I do not know the reason for the current trial. I do not know too much about the murders, the trials, etc, but I am reading a book about the crime. I am only about 40 pages into the 400+ page book, but I am glad I had some of that background before touring the house. The crime is not the main focus of the tour; instead the tour highlights the elaborately designed home and the people who lived there. Only recently were the tour guides even allowed to discuss the murders. So some of the tile used in one room was $5 a square in about 1905, some of the wood was specially fumed with ammonia to retain its color, and various other wallpapers, woods, lamps, vases, etc. were imported from around the world. It was an expensive home to build in the early 1900s, and would have cost millions today. Unfortunately they do not allow pictures to be taken inside the house, but I was able to get some of the outside. The house is built on the shore of Lake Superior, just north and west of downtown Duluth, and right along London Road/Highway 61 which heads north to Two Harbors. I am including a picture of the view from the lakefront, the front of the house, and the back of the house. I did not take any pictures of the grounds, but the Congdons had extensive plant and vegetable gardens (including greenhouses that grew tropical fruit, but they have since been torn down), a tennis court, decks/patios, a fountain, a boat house, bridges over the creek, and a carriage house. I think all of that would have been more impressive during the summer when everything was in bloom. Anyway, the tour was interesting, and I am looking forward to reading more about the house, family, and crime in the book.

Another Wednesday

Today was a pretty good day... I did my first BOT-2 test (evaluation of motor skills for kids), and it went pretty well. The PT I was with was really helpful in providing tips as to how to better administer the test and note how kids "cheat" to perform the task better. She also showed me some good ways to get kids to perform skills that use similar muscle groups but may not be as challenging as the test. The alternatives are good to document what the kids can actually do to pinpoint which area is the hardest for them. The kids I worked with today were good at cooperating and staying on task (even with the lunch time traffic in the school). Tomorrow may be a bit of a different story: the evals are on 2 boys with a history of running/darting through any doorway they see. The teachers at the schools advised us to have as many people on hand as possible to guard the doors... luckily we will have me, a PT, and a PTA. One of the boys was even seen throwing the cards he was supposed to shuffle in a manual dexterity task for the OT.

On Tuesday I went running down along the Lakewalk in Duluth again. This time I had no creepy runners with me. I took a couple of pictures from Lakewalk East where I started running toward Canal Park. I think they are a bit blurry, but in one of them you can see the bridge over to the Wisconsin side of the lake. The taller bridge is the aerial lift bridge, which is kind of the symbol of Duluth (as far as I can gather). It appears in a lot of postcards and brochures. I think it's supposed to be snowy/rainy tomorrow, but if the weather cooperates, I might try and do one last run down by Lake Superior.

I just looked at the pictures, and I think they are too small to really get the details--but it looked cool in real life.

Oops

So I have been neglecting my blog as of late... Nothing too exciting has happened up in the Northland, and I was back in the cities this weekend. It was wonderful to see Ross and his family, and I had pretty good days at work too.

Last Thursday I did okay at trying to get a little guy with autism to do a jumping jack, but I think he just didn't want to do it. We might try again tomorrow--and we'll probably play a bit of floor hockey too. We played some musical chairs with some other boys and had scooter races with the girls in the afternoon. Since it was rainy, we had to pull out the indoor tricks... and I have a feeling that a majority of the school PT will be indoors for the rest of my affil. Considering it's now November, I guess that isn't bad. Now I want to get the game Twister because so many of the kids struggle with balance or core strength or coordination. This week I'll be able to do a few evaluations of students using the BOT-2 test. The test evaluates age appropriate activities in categories like bilateral coordination, strength, speed and agility, etc. I've only administered portions of the BOT so far, so I'm looking forward to doing a full one.

As for clinic patients... things just keep getting more interesting. We have a couple "textbook" cases of weakness or typical patterns of post-surgical progression, but some of the patients are fascinatingly non-textbook. It's really causing me to think and actually want to review and study material from my classes! I cannot remember near the amount of information that I want to. So I should probably be doing that now...

Thunderstorm!

Two Harbors is having a great thunderstorm right now... I left some of my blinds open so I can watch the lightening. It is pouring, and has been for quite a while now. I love listening to the rain with the interruptions of thunder. Now is when I wish I could stand outside on a covered porch to watch the storm like Tracy, Ang, and I would do in St. Paul.

Earlier today I was introduced to a different kind of thunderstorm. The PTA that I am with at the schools took me to a bakery in Duluth that makes AMAZING cookies. I sampled the chocolate chip in the store and was surprised at how good it was. When the PTA worked at NovaCare (outpatient orthopedic PT clinic) in Duluth, they would take turns going to the bakery at lunch at random and buying the Thunder cookies (peanut butter with chocolate chips) and then calling their friends and asking if they were ready for a "Thunderstorm." We got some macaroon cookies in addition to the Thunder cookies, and I am definitely ready for a trip back. I almost stopped again on my way home today!

After my PT day was done, I drove to the Lakewalk along Lake Superior in Duluth and ran there. I don't know why I didn't think to do that before now. Today was beautiful until about 3:00pm when it started to get overcast. The rain didn't start until about 4:30. So I ran along the Lakewalk towards Canal Park in Duluth, and it was great. A fellow runner kind of creeped me out a bit, but I still enjoyed myself. It was kind of cool seeing the aerial lift bridge get bigger and bigger as I got closer. I ran out to the little lighthouse along the ship canal and back to my starting point. I'd love to do that again on Thursday, but I think the forecast is calling for more rain and thunderstorms...

Nothing too spectacular happened today at the schools. The kids were pretty good, and we were outside quite a bit because the weather was so nice. I saw multiple kids out at recess wearing just shorts at t-shirts! Pediatric PT is fun because we get to be outside traipsing through the woods or hunting for agates along a gravel road. One of the schools is next to a nature preserve, so we go for walks in the woods sometimes and use logs as balance beams and lift branches for arm strengthening. The difference between typically developing kids and kids with delay is sometimes really evident. One of the boys is in 2nd or 3rd grade and cannot jump off a platform 6-8" above the ground. He has some extreme fear regarding his body position in space and doesn't even like to step over branches or rocks. Others exhibit immature running patterns or have problems hopping. (I might have written about this already, sorry.) We play football with one of the boys and then have challenging touchdown dances involving hopping or jumping or bilateral coordination. It's fun thinking of what to do to challenge them but make it somewhat fun at the same time. The challenge for Thursday this week will be to get a boy with autism to do push-ups and jumping jacks. He has some significant sensory issues and does not talk. He can follow directions and understands spoken communication, and will sometimes model behavior. But one of his "things" is to close his eyes tight--which is not conducive for demonstration.

The storm has stopped for the time being.

PS-If you are a facebook friend, I uploaded more Gooseberry/Split Rock pictures to that site.

North Shore Adventures

Today I took a small trip up the North Shore to Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse. It was another gorgeous day... and nice days should really be enjoyed at this time of the year. I walked a few trails at both state parks. I don't think I truly went hiking because I was on paved trails for part of the time, but I did do some climbing on boulders and rocks along the shore of Lake Superior near the lighthouse.

I uploaded some pictures of the falls, me with a CCC worker statue, and some of the lighthouse. And I can't seem to figure out how to get the pictures to be horizontal instead of vertical, so I uploaded less than I wanted to...