A Field Trip

An interesting article in Newsweek about how scientists have used the DNA of body lice (a misnomer, since they actually live in clothing) to determine that 114,000 years ago, humans lost body hair for good and had to make up for it with clothing. Huh. I'm telling you, it's the New Science of Human Evolution.

It was another lovely day, so the new physio Sarah and I took the opportunity to take out one of our patients who is very functional physically but with a lot of higher level cognitive problems. We took her off hospital grounds and across one pretty busy road to a very pretty pond on the edges of Epping Forest. She was able to order some drinks for us from the little shack with moderate prompting and produced the correct change from a palmful of coins independently. After we sat down near the pond, we noticed she was watching the birds. She was able to identify jackdaws and magpies, although we had to take her word for it given our lack of knowledge in that area. We asked her about birds in her garden at home, and she named starlings but then got stuck. We waited for a bit, and then I said we couldn't help her out unfortunately by offering names of birds as we didn't know much about birds. This lady's personality is showing up a bit more these days, and she immediately responded by rubbing her hands, and saying "Well then!" as if she were about to make up a whole list of birds because we wouldn't know the difference anyway. Only she got stuck at starlings again. We were all very loathe to return to the hospital, it was so beautiful, but had lingered long enough we all missed lunch (don't worry, the nurses kept some for her!).

I'm very excited, I get to go along with her for an assessment on Friday morning at the Homerton RNRU, which is a regional unit specialising in working with people who have higher level cognitive deficits. I've heard a lot about it, and am looking forward to having a look at the program in person. Actually, they are currently advertising for a Senior 2 OT, so shhh, don't tell anyone, but I'm going to apply ;)

This lady's husband came in at the end of the day, and was very excited to hear that she could come home this weekend for an overnight visit (she's only been doing short day leaves to home thus far). I took advantage of his presence to introduce both my patient and her husband to the OT who will be taking my place in three weeks' time. And my patient, bless, began to cry because "You're leaving me." I felt my eyes watering up, I was overwhelmed at seeing such emotion from her because she has been fairly blank in terms of emotions up until this point as a result of her brain injuries...I had to rush into the good news about her weekend overnight visit coming up to keep from crying myself.

Man, I really don't want to leave this unit!