Last Couple of Days

So as I write this I am two days away from heading out of Chicago. It is a strange feeling to be leaving I suppose because this is the first time I have left people behind that I did not have to. In highschool, I clearly had to leave. That was also the case when i graduated from college. However, in this case, I could have pursuded my doctorate at the same school.

As I head out of Chicago, I will be leaving a few people behind. In my life I have left many people behind and I wonder if I will stay in touch with some of these people as I sincrely hope to. In grad school a lot of times you meet a lot of people but make very few friends. This is because people tend to lead their own lives and not be as involved with school activities. Many of these people have serious boyfriends/girlfriends or are even married. It is a very different lifestyle to college and can take some serious adjustment.

I had thought about sayign something to each of these people I would leave behind here, but the fact is, I would rather do it face to face. And thats why I havent upodated this blog in a while. I have been spending time with these people and leaving "the right way". I do not know if I will see them again, or if I will keep in touch, but I hope to.

With that, I think this will likely be my last real update from Chicago. Tomorrow, or later today I might put up a small thank you chicago post, but this will likely be the last real post from the Windy City.

It was good to see you as you are a person of the earth

So the past few days I have been racking my brain trying to come up with an amusing anecodote when I came to the realization that yall kinda have to know the people in order to find it amusing. So I thought I would submit this one and I dont expect yall to find it too amusing.

One of the people I really liked speaking to was this old crotchety lady. She was in her 80s and had a pretty set routine. She would wake up and sit out in the dayroom playing cards until breakfast. Then she would play cards until lunch. Then she would be forced to leave the dayroom while it was cleaned after lunch. During this time she would pace around the hallway. Finally when the day room was cleaned she would go back in and play some more cards till dinner. After dinner it was cards till bed time.

So one thing we would do is try to get her to interact with us or with her fellow residents. She would many times yell at you or scream( and she had a pair of lungs)that she wanted or didnt want anything. Oh, and dont try to shake her hand, she will try and break it. So in essence, she is a bit crotchety, she yells, and doesnt want you near her.

So around Christmas time there was a caroling event at the facility. I took three people over, a guy in a wheel chair, a woman who is somewhat catatonic, and this old crotchety lady. While we were sitting there some people started to sing some of the songs. During the song Noel, all of a sudden the crotchety lady starts yelling at the top of her lungs NOOEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. I was taken a back by it as I did not expect her to take part. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen and was wonderful as she was actually interacting with her peers.

While this might not come across as amsuing, sadly its one of those things that had to be there to truly enjoy. When I left on my last day I said goodbye to her and how much I enjoyed working with her, ahe responded with one of her trademark phrases. "It was good to see you as you are a person of the earth". Yup... I will definitly miss working with her.

Thats It!

After 9 months my internship is now over. Since I am no longer associated with the facility in any way i am free to comment on specific things I saw(as long as I am vague and not use real names)and so I will by sharing a few stories.

That being said, I was typically there from about 815(sometimes 8) and I left on a good day around 615 or so. I usually chose not to take a lunch break so i worked about 10 hours straight through.

Where to begin? Well let me start by filling in some of the murky details i could not before. I worked in a psychiatric nursing home where everyone had some sort of severe mental illness. Everyone who lived there had Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective, or were Bipolar with Psychotic features. Actually, no thats not compleltey true as there were about 52 people in the program I was working for and the nursing home had about 200 residents. Many of those residents also had personality disorders.

Now when i say psychiatric nursing home, I am sure many of yall are thinking older people, and for some of that it is true. The oldest person I personally worked with was about 97. However, the nursing home also took in much younger people as well. The youngest person in the program i was involved in was about 30 and the youngest person at the nursing home couldnt have been more then say early 20s. So it is wide range of people, needs, and illnesses.

So what would I do? Well i had a group of people who I did individual therapy. Sessions lasted either 30 mins or an hour and it would be a time to work on specific issues or discuss specific things to help the person progress towards the goals of treatment plan. These goals are set by both the therapsit as well as the individual and are created in terms of short term, middle, and long term. This way reasonable goals can be set, attained, and then progress can be shown. This was usually done 2x per week, per person.

Another thing I would do is conduct group therapy. Sometimes several people have a few common goals and it can be very useful to have the patients see things for themselves and point it out to each other. It is one thing if i say something to them, but when one of their own peers says something, it can be that much more valuable. I usually ran this group 2X per week and it was run one other day I was not there.

Having educational groups are very important in my mind and I usually ran at least 1 or two each day I was there. One of my favorites was the Medication Training Group. This is a time when i sat down with people and discussed what medications they were taking, why they were taking it, what the medications actually did, and how they worked. I thoguht this was especially important becuase if a person does not understand why they are taking something, they are more likley not to take it. ANd for these people it is extremely important they take every medication every time.

Also I ran a few social groups. This is an oppertunity to work on interpersonal skills, learning to spend time with other people in a healthy way. many times people become instituionalized and exhibit those types of behaviors and it is important to help people prevent that behavior. This is especially true when people have to live in rooms with either 1 or 3 other roomates. As is the case, little things will come up when you have to live with others, so it is important to teach good communication sklills so that the issues do not become large problems.

Well thats a decent start. Next time I will try to think up a few stories of a typical day and if yall have any specific interests in types of stories let me know.