Starting to Get Back to "Regular"

I went to my first Occupational Therapy appointment yesterday with a certified hand specialist to work on regaining full function on my previously broken fingers. They are almost entirely healed up, so the hand doctor started me off with my OT this week. I am no longer wearing the splints - that is scary enough for me - anxiety is calling - but I am also having to stretch my fingers in ways that my hand has been unable to stretch for four months now. I am attempting to touch type with all ten of my fingers at the moment, and I am out of practice - woefully. I am having to consciously use my brain to tell me to move my fingers in patterns that they have used forever but are not usual right now.

This is the start of my journey into "regular" finger function. I am in a bunch of pain and the fingers that have not had to bend for four months are now being used more and that is not comfortable, but I know that this is part of the process to getting back to what I want to be able to do with my hands - again.

My writing callus is gone from my middle finger. I have had that since I started drawing and it is gone. My guitar calluses are also gone, and I miss them all!

I am thinking of yesterday as the start of recovery. Being in splints for four months was the "healing" part of this process. Now, I am entering recovery - the period of time where I am working towards playing the guitar, making books, and crocheting again without having to go through pain. Now that my fingers are "recovering," I am expecting pain and frustration, but I am also trusting in the expertise of people who do this with many other people to guide me through this process.

It is amazing how much trust people put into their therapists - all sorts of therapists. I have now had three therapists in my life - one counselor, one physical therapist, and now one occupational therapist - and I am always amazed at how it feels to be the client rather than the therapist. It is always a very meta-therapy sort of experience for me, being a therapist in therapy. Being a client affords me a glimpse into what some of my clients must feel about being in a therapeutic school - I know it is not the same, but there are some parallels. I hope it makes me more focused on my chosen philosophy of humanism.

Something to continuously strive for. Being a better human for the benefit of the humans I serve.

Today is day eleven of this break - I am choosing to count the days down to help me keep track of which day is which. Hence, today is day eleven. I have to put together a video for Christmas Eve Sunday School and that is all that is going on here. I am going to sit down and make a list of things that I can accomplish on this day and then start to work through that list. I know that folding the laundry will be on the list - maybe also taking a bag or two of clothing to be donated.

We will see. On the list is stretching the fingers more and more as I am able to do so. Other things will come up and get done. Time to get started. 

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