A day in the life

Today was a pretty busy day!  Slightly overwhelming at times, but overall really good.  I've been wanting to do a post about work and a typical day there, but decided to just do it today.  So even though today wasn't entirely normal in terms of schedules and whatnot, the general gist of it is pretty representative of what I do...

6:50am - Alarm goes off.  Promptly hit snooze

7:00am - Alarm goes off again.  Promptly hit snooze again.  Get a text message.  Learn that the other rec therapist is sick and it will be just me today.  Try to go back to sleep.

7:10am - Alarm goes off again.  Promptly hit snooze again.  (Are we noticing a theme here?!?)

7:20am - Get up, get dressed, pull the hair into a pony tail and grab breakfast.

7:40am - Leave for work

7:56am - Clock in.  Yay for being early for work!!

8:00am - Print the updated census, update our patient board, check the daily theme, prep assessments that need to be done on new patients.

8:10am - Talk to supervisor about a plan for the day

8:15am - Treatment team meeting for the Geriatric Unit

8:40am - Finish creating a plan for day.  Fill in the staff and get coloring pages and "This Day in History" page ready for the geriatric staff to do with the patients.  Plan 11am group.

9:00am - Adult treatment team meeting

10:00am - Adult Unit 2 Exercise group in the gym.  Mondays is arms, so we did some stretching, worked with the resistance bands and had free time.  Complete one assessment with a patient during free time.

11:00am - Geriatric intervention group on the unit.  The theme is social skills.  Lead a discussion about the top 8 social skills from the last 2500 years.  Try to keep patients calm.  Play Social Skills Jenga with patients, and have them name social skills as they pull out blocks.

11:50am - Prep my notes.  Essentially this entails filling in the details that are the same for every note- date and time of group, group facilitator topic and patient name--for my two morning groups.  Score assessment I did during the exercise group.

12:10pm - Head to lunch.  Because it's been a crazy day, and I know I need a break, I go out to eat.

12:37pm - Clock back in.  Yes, 27 minute lunches here... I'm getting good at calculating just when to clock back in... Head to my office and prep the notes for my adolescent group.  Plan my two adult intervention groups.

1:10pm - Adolescent group in the gym.  Same plan as before, but more free time.  Play with the kids during free time.

2:00pm - Adult Unit 2 intervention group on the unit.  Play Taboo.  Discuss various social skills.  Take library book requests.

3:00pm - Adult Unit 1 intervention group on the unit.  Discuss the Social Skills handout.  Play Jenga.

4:00pm - Head back to the office.  Finish prepping my notes from my afternoon groups with the two adult units.  See the rec therapist that was covering the evening groups!  Fill her in; help her plan activity night.  Write notes, write notes, write notes, and write notes.

6:00pm - Head upstairs and organize the notes and various other paperwork that needs to be filed into patients' charts.

6:20pm - Start filing the paperwork in the charts.

6:40pm - Realize that if I don't leave soon, I'm going to go over hours.  Put the papers back into the "To File" box and head back down to my office.

6:45pm - Clock out and head home!

And there you have it...a day as a rec therapist at the psych hospital.  I guess I left out details like the conversation I had with a patient about how she needs to go home because she's been in "treatment" too long and has her job she needs to get back to or the patient who purged after dinner and said it was an "environmental hazard" because she puked in the middle of the room or the patient who just kept saying "3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, 3 minutes, 3 seconds" over and over.  But you know, those are minor details. ;-)

Honestly though, I absolutely love my job!  I work with some pretty awesome people (staff and patients alike) and have so much fun.  It's so rewarding to watch people work through the crisis they are facing and realize their worth as a person.  Despite the sometimes chaotic moments, I wouldn't trade days like today for anything!