Thursday, January 6

Placement is Getting to Me

I'm really enjoying placement.  What?  I know, why did I worry so much?  Well, that is what I do.  I'd update more about how much I'm learning and some of the quease-enducing things I see each day but there are crazy-strict privacy policies so I prefer to just talk about placement as little as possible.  Basically I'm a speech-pathology student at a complex continuing care facility.  This means people with major difficulties physically, cognitively, linguistically and....I do swallowing assessments all day long.

This is my first time slaving working in a medical environment.  With all of the sad tales around me (so many clients are fairly young suffering the aftermath of severe strokes or brain injuries) I wasn't sure how I would adjust.  It seemed like I was doing better than I expected, making connections with some of the patients, really enjoying the work.  Apparently my subconscious isn't so chill about all of this tough stuff.  I woke myself up last night by screaming in my sleep.  This is pretty dang unusual for me, no one has ever really mentioned me sleep talking.  I remember the dream:  I was on a streetcar (transit during rush hour is also new to me) and my sister comes up to me and informs me that someone we love very much* has been in a car accident that left them physically mangled and with a major brain injury that they would not recover from.  It was surreal and I felt so anguished that I collapsed and began to scream but nothing came out.  I tried the wheezy dream-scream over and over until I just let one loose in real life (or was it?).

*I don't consider myself superstitious (or religious for that matter**) but for some reason I feel like I would have to do all kinds of wood knocking if I posted WHOM was victim of the horrible accident.  Yes, even if it was just a dream.  Weird, true.  But it isn't going to be my fault!
**I just like pointing out that I'm no longer into Jesus***.  It wasn't relevant to the explanation.
***A wicked chain of asterisks for $400, Alex.  It is totally cool if you happen to be into Jesus though.

1 comment:

Who's Who in the Soo said...

*Hugs* I understand. I used to have a horrible recurring nightmare about someone we love passing away in a terrible accident (I don't want you to feel the need for any wood-knocking by proxy, hence the lack of name).

Also, I love that when I finally show up in your blog it's as a harbinger of doom =P Just kidding.