I made it to week two. 25 more weeks to go. Today started at 7:45 at the office. The seniors were preparing for the McDonald Center group that starts at 8:50am. The McDonald Center is a 28 day in-patient alcohol and drug addiction rehabilitation center. They are required to go to music therapy every Monday, attend counseling sessions, journal daily, and other things such as meditation. I was told that these patients will never miss their smoke break. ha. The session turned out great! There are four music therapy lesson plans for this group. Today's session was music therapy and creative arts (drawing/coloring). Session started with a relaxation exercise. I participated...we were supposed to visualize something (that represented the addiction) in one hand, and it was something heavy, weighing down on us. I visualized this teeny-tiny fire ball. I've been having a lot of tension in between my shoulders and viewed this fire ball as the tension I have been keeping there. In our other hand (which was my left hand) we were supposed to visualize something (that represented recovery) that was weightless, positive, etc. I visualized a pure heart. The clients then were supposed to draw what they visualized on a mandala. They had two, and they drew their addiction one first. They were given 12 minutes. Some clients used every second, while others were done in 2 minutes. The next mandala represented their road to recovery. After finishing the mandalas, each client shared what they saw in the relaxation exercise and how it was represented in their mandala. Some of the drawings weren't very sophisticated, but how they discussed what it meant to them and how the negative transformed into this positive was just stunning. The clients then compared each of their mandalas with the whole group--you should have seen all the similarities. Just amazing--every client, although a different addition, different story, and different life, had very similar thoughts, feelings, and emotions while drawing their mandalas. Mandalas represent the unconscious thoughts in a person. It was a very successful session and I really enjoyed observing and participating.
Next I went with Bahareh to a Parkinson's group. 7 men with Parkinson's come to this group that works with a Physical Therapist (PT) and Music Therapist (MT) simultaneously. MT's are supposed to support the PT and clients while doing stretching, exercising, and counting. Piano is used--it was interesting to watch Bahareh play the piano--all improv. When clients raise their arms, the music should get higher and when the arms are lowered, the music should lower as well. Very simplistic (makes sense, right), but very helpful to the clients. The last 15 min. is purely MT--sing a long, egg shakers for movement (fine and gross), articulating words for speaking, and just for enjoyment! Next week we are going to bring the tone chimes!
Monday's are the only day when Barbara comes to the office. She observes the McDonald session, leads the integrative session (which I will go to next Monday--we switch off every week), and then we eat lunch and discuss in detail the McDonald session. We also go over patient highlights and the schedule for the week. You should see the schedule...yikes. All color-coded and fancy schmancy. At about 3:30 we were done with symposium.
After that, I went with Stephanie to 4West. That is the 4th floor, West side of Scripps La Jolla. The floors are divided into 2 wings, East and West. Pretty self-explanatory. I'm starting to slowly learn my way around the hospital...the first floor and lower level are a bit confusing, but I've got the other floors down.
Stephanie and I went to see patient, R (using initials for confidentiality) who had a brain aneurysm and who is only 21, married, and his wife is expecting a baby. R was in the ICU for I think a month at least, and was just moved up to 4W. His brother-in-law and wife were present. R is paralyzed on his left side. He tries to move his fingers on his left hand, but is unable to as of right now. You can see his frustration in his eyes, but his wife keeps motivating him. We sang some songs while he drummed with a paddle drum and mallet using his right hand. His wife would fool with him and move the drum so he had to work at hitting it! :) He asked for Incubus and Stephanie sang "Drive", then Stephanie asked if he liked reggae. He said yes, so she sang "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. I'd only heard the song once before, but tried to sing along. The chorus is very good and pertains to the issues that R has been facing. A nurse came to jam with us (R wanted this nurse to "jam" with us, so she did). AWESOME nurse. For the first time I saw joy in his eyes. At the chorus, the line "and every little thing's gonna be alright" repeats a few times, and it became very emotional. You could see R tear up a bit. We kept repeating that line and he grabbed for his wife to hug him. It was very emotional. From what I've heard, he has made huge improvements from the ICU and is improving everyday. Very, very rewarding to say the least. I had to hold back my own tears.
Left the office at about 5:20pm. Tomorrow will be another orientation at Scripps, La Jolla. 8am-3pm, followed by inventory. yippee. Hear my excitement?
Tomorrow is our 6 month anniversary!! Geeze--those 6 months of marriage have flown by! Right, honey?? Pure bliss. I am one lucky wifey :)
All my love.
xoxo
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