Soul Surfer

A friend of mine has recently recovered from cancer, and is finally celebrating 5 years all clear, some months after this momentous anniversary. Throughout her treatment she wrote a series of incredible e-mails to an extended network of worldwide family and friends. The e-mails were shocking in their honesty and rawness, and filled with concern and prayer requests for others she met while undergoing treatment. From the other side of the world I read and wept. The next time I saw her she was ‘all clear’ of cancer, but she wasn’t the same. She looked old. She looked scared. She looked lost. Discharged from hospital and medical care, friends hugged and congratulated- it was over!

Except it wasn’t.

She didn’t send an e-mail at 5 years all-clear. She didn’t make a call or post a blog or plough it in a cornfield big enough for Google earth to see. She didn’t feel alive yet.

The e-mail I received came after she’d been on a surf trip with a charity called First Descents. First Descents organise (properly challenging) challenges not just for those still fighting the cancer in their bodies, but also for young adult survivors, who are still fighting- fighting the towering impact of cancer in their minds and their souls. Her e-mail sounds like... her again. It describes not a ‘cancer club’, but a group of young adults together just trying not to fall off (or hit themselves in the face with) their surfboards. Cowabunga!

Meghan is currently training for a half-marathon to raise funds for this empowering charity. She’s also a truly great writer- here’s her (hilarious) training blog- read it and be inspired.   http://asskickedcancerrunners.tumblr.com/

Check out the First Descents website at http://firstdescents.org/about-us

Or Youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/firstdescents1?feature=results_main

Am I an OT yet?

This is a grey area. Our final results were out today and I’ve passed! Hurray- but wait... I’m not an OT yet. In September I’ll graduate, picking up what I hear is an empty scroll. (The real one comes later in the mail). In the meantime I’ll be working on my CPD file and probably posting about it. I think that I can call myself an occupational therapist when I register with the HPC, but it won’t quite feel right ‘til I’m working.

I’m not a student any more (although do still have 2 months left to get a student discount at the cinema) but I’m not an OT yet. Actually I’m a part-time shop lady in a little gallery by the sea, and part-time unemployed. I am looking at jobs and I’m cutting and pasting them into a list, trying to imagine applying. There seems to be a lot of stages left to go,

Family and friends are starting conversations with the question... and no I don’t have a job yet. I haven’t even taken my library books back yet. (How will I go on without the library??!! I have spent far too many years as a student- all for the joy of the library!! Where else but a university library can you find books on EVERYTHING? Some students steer clear of the library all year, but my misdemeanour’s been the opposite. I’d say it’s a generous 40:60 split between essayish texts and totally unrelated material. It’s a grieving process, I’ll get over it. Probably just get a smartphone.)

Part of me is feeling eager and optimistic, and part is slightly freaking out- “It’s tooo soooon! You need more experience first!” When I shared this with a fellow student, who’s wiser than I am, she smiled and asked how I got on on placements, could I do the job by the end? Well I got on alright and I could do the job by the end... and she smiled and said not to worry. I’m really going to miss the OT crowd; it’s been an honour to study with such a bunch of caring, inspiring and down-to-earth people. But now it’s time to take a deep breath, just prepare and just APPLY! I’ll keep you posted.

OTs and Bumblebees

Why OT Bumblebee?

Let me first assure you that this is a blog about human, not bee occupation. There are a few reasons bees resonated with my post-university ponderings on OT, some more tenuous than others...

This is the main one: I love watching and listening to the bees in my garden. They visit lots of different types of flowers and rattle out backwards, covered in pollen. They take all the different pollen and synthesise it into something with its own unique flavour. Yes, there are different types of honey, but they all taste of, well... honey. OTs also take what they need from such diverse fields as medical science, psychology and education, and synthesise it into something unique. In this blog I also want to take a bumblebee approach and draw on diverse fields and topics to find nuggets of nectar to share.

Bees are also a symbol of the interdependence of the ecosystem, a tiny creature that if removed, the whole system fails. I’ve found that OT training has continually encouraged me to take a holistic perspective, and always emphasised the interdependence between our environments, who we are and what we do.

but mainly it's a great rhyme.