Slowing Down, and Not By Choice
Recently, I posted thoughts on mental health days. Today, I am on my second consecutive sick day away from my clients - right after Thanksgiving break - and am starting to have some cabin fever! (If you are unfamiliar with that phrase, it epitomizes the restlessness that you have when you must stay in one particular place - often used when settlers spent lots of time snowed in during long, cold winters.) So, today's post is regarding sick days - keeping our germs to ourselves!
We have a responsibility to our clients and to ourselves to be a bit selfish when it comes to germs. Some of my kids are medically fragile and do not need to have me sharing my coughs all over the music room. While I do not like being sick, I have come to the conclusion that it is better for me to take some time away from therapy than it is to push through the germs to offer inadequate experiences.
I still feel guilty about it though.
I have bronchitis. I am running a temperature, so have been told not to return to work until the fever has broken. I have taken my second dose of medication, so anticipate that I will be back in my music therapy room tomorrow. I will still be coughing, wheezing, and tired, but the fever should be done. We will spend some time engaged in quiet things, therapeutic experiences that will require little active singing on my part to decrease the coughing, wheezing, and exhaustion.
My body is telling me, the only way it can, that I need to take some time to sleep, force fluids, and keep coughing in isolation. If I do not listen to what my body is trying to tell me, it will just plain old shut down.
When I get back tomorrow, I will be greeted by kids who will have noticed my absence and who will interrogate me about where I have been the past two days. There will be some looks from my co-workers wondering if this was just a sneaky way to extend my holiday (oh, how I wish I had been able to return to work instead of having to be on the holiday at all!! It was not something that I wanted to extend AT ALL!). Then, they will hear my cough. They will scatter as far away from me as possible and allow me to hack and wheeze without further comment!
It is important for therapists to be aware of the situations that affect our therapeutic relationships. If I am sitting in a session, feeling poorly, interrupting every song by long coughing spells, I am not offering my client the best of my therapeutic self. I am not able to use music the way my client deserves from me. It is better to not offer the session than wasting the session by offering less than the best of me. When clients are paying for their sessions, I think they would much rather pay for quality rather than quantity.
So, I am going to get some breakfast and go back to bed with my cough and my tissues. I am going to listen to my body and slow down. I'll be back tomorrow ready to get back into the swing of things (I hope! I REALLY hope!!!) and to make good music with my clients. The germs will NOT win!
We have a responsibility to our clients and to ourselves to be a bit selfish when it comes to germs. Some of my kids are medically fragile and do not need to have me sharing my coughs all over the music room. While I do not like being sick, I have come to the conclusion that it is better for me to take some time away from therapy than it is to push through the germs to offer inadequate experiences.
I still feel guilty about it though.
I have bronchitis. I am running a temperature, so have been told not to return to work until the fever has broken. I have taken my second dose of medication, so anticipate that I will be back in my music therapy room tomorrow. I will still be coughing, wheezing, and tired, but the fever should be done. We will spend some time engaged in quiet things, therapeutic experiences that will require little active singing on my part to decrease the coughing, wheezing, and exhaustion.
My body is telling me, the only way it can, that I need to take some time to sleep, force fluids, and keep coughing in isolation. If I do not listen to what my body is trying to tell me, it will just plain old shut down.
When I get back tomorrow, I will be greeted by kids who will have noticed my absence and who will interrogate me about where I have been the past two days. There will be some looks from my co-workers wondering if this was just a sneaky way to extend my holiday (oh, how I wish I had been able to return to work instead of having to be on the holiday at all!! It was not something that I wanted to extend AT ALL!). Then, they will hear my cough. They will scatter as far away from me as possible and allow me to hack and wheeze without further comment!
It is important for therapists to be aware of the situations that affect our therapeutic relationships. If I am sitting in a session, feeling poorly, interrupting every song by long coughing spells, I am not offering my client the best of my therapeutic self. I am not able to use music the way my client deserves from me. It is better to not offer the session than wasting the session by offering less than the best of me. When clients are paying for their sessions, I think they would much rather pay for quality rather than quantity.
So, I am going to get some breakfast and go back to bed with my cough and my tissues. I am going to listen to my body and slow down. I'll be back tomorrow ready to get back into the swing of things (I hope! I REALLY hope!!!) and to make good music with my clients. The germs will NOT win!
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