Woohoo Thursdays

Thursdays might as well be the start of the weekend, don't you think? You've only got Friday left to get through, you're happy it's Friday, and depending upon your job, it breezes by, and you might even be having fun. I do wish I was still having exercise group a la Roosevelt Hospital, just for the excuse to dance ;) and watch the residents try to play beach ball volleyball in wheelchairs!

Thursdays are pretty exciting now, with House MD at 9pm and Grey's Anatomy at 10! Of course, I have seen all the episodes thus far...House just started here recently, and tonight is the very first episode of Grey's Anatomy being aired over here. So I won't see any new episodes for oh, say maybe a year? I definitely won't stay home if there are better plans afloat to get out on the town, but most nights, given that we only have 5 channels via antenna, there really isn't anything to watch.

Had an interesting experience in my falls education group today. I've taken over Thursday group from my supervisor, and didn't know a lot about individual personalities. I have four ladies, all of whom have their own idiosyncratic mannerisms in seeking and maintaining attention. One of them, we'll call her Violet, just talks and talks and talks, and talks over others, in her eagerness to share her knowledge and stories. Additionally, she can be quite high pitched when excited. Well, today, she was sitting next to a lady (Ivy) who obviously didn't appreciate her constant contributions to the discussion, and I'm sorry to say she became more and more rude. I thought maybe I was mistaken the first two times I heard Ivy suck her teeth in a drawn out tsking sound when Violet began to talk. But it became more and more obvious as Ivy escalated her behavior and began to make comments under her breath, then try to talk over Violet, then try to start a different conversation with me to drag my attention away from what Violet was contributing to the group. Unfortunately, although I think she was unaware at first, I've no doubt Violet was well aware of Ivy's intentions by the end of our group. I will have to make some changes for next week. First of all, these two women will not sit next to each other. And secondly, rather than having a discussion as I prefer, I'll have to make it more of a talk from me, with sort of guided questioning to each member in turn as directed by me to contribute to the topic. Shame really. My Wednesday group is a lovely discussion format.

Additionally, I'm wondering whether I had a little encounter with racism in group today. At the end of the group, one of the members asked where I was from, and somehow or other we moved from there to the fact that I'm living in Leytonstone. "You're living where, dear?" Shocked silence where there had been at least three of the four group members talking, and the facial expressions were priceless. Leytonstone has become a very ethnic area of East London, and for as much as London is an amazing melting pot, you do find that people seem to resent what are increasingly multi national neighborhoods, and will make comments about ethnicities. And I found myself defending my choice of where to live, such as stating that the rent is pretty reasonable. "I'm sure it is, dear." I was taken aback, but they had all started to move out the door, so that was the end of that.

I forgot to mention yesterday, I had a followup visit with a lovely lady who is moving to Cornwall with her son and daughter-in-law, with her son as her main carer now that he's retired. So it was my second and last visit with her, and I wanted to make sure they were practicing safe transfers, that they were managing well together, and to show them the adaptive equipment they should expect to be able to get through OT in Cornwall. On her initial visit, the PT had wanted her to start using a rollator frame (I'm still calling it a rolling walker out of habit, for as much as that confuses people), but she flat out refused because she didn't want people to see her with it, so after much cajoling on the PT's part, this woman went home with a walking stick (yes, I'm still calling that one a cane). This time around, I found out she'd had a fall, so I had a chat with her, and asked her if I could present a different perspective on the frame. I asked her if she would consider using the frame inside at least, as a way of enabling her to everything she wants to do without being limited to where there is furniture she can lean on. She's also experiencing back pain so I talked about the frame promoting good posture. And I had an inspiration in terms of her personality, and told her to think of the frame as a friend who's always with her, supporting her, and she could even give it a name if she wanted to, like Charlie. She agreed, and I raced off to find the PT to get her a frame. We laughed about Charlie the rest of the afternoon, everytime she passed by with the frame, and while I know it will take her some time, and she won't use it outdoors, I think she'll come to realize the frame is a good thing.

And finally, I made homemade lasagna tonight...I had a great time making it, really sort of got into my own little cooking world. Unfortunately, I am used to making my homemade marinara sauce with crushed tomatoes, which I can't find here. So I used chopped tomatoes, and the sauce ended up very runny. Delicious, but very runny. I'm going to need to adapt my recipe somehow. I'm coming up a bit short on ideas, though aside from adding flour which I would rather not do for a red sauce. Any thoughts?