1. MY DIARY:
Every year I go on the ultimate diary
hunt. I get so excited around Christmas time when the stores start stocking
their shelves with the prospect of new beginnings. Yes, a new beginning. A
clean slate. Something to fill up with… appointments. But it is so much more. I
can spend hours in a book shop pouring over paper-back, leather-bound, A4, A5,
colourful or plain, picture-filled or serious. This year what I desperately
wanted was an A4 leather-bound zip folder diary but in the end chose “A Diary
for a Lady” by Elise Grey. This is a sweet A5 sized hard-cover with beautiful
pictures and warm inspiration. It fits in my handbag and is happy to get stuffed full of all those random scraps of paper I tend to collect as I go along. It inspires creativity and organization and is very pretty to look at. My
other favourite diary in the past has been a Joyce Meyer diary (I was
also trying to get my hands on a leather back version of this). I have a terrible habit of hording my
old diaries “just in case”! With excitement and a hope to be organised I can hardly wait for the next New Diary season to
begin!
2. TEA!!!
My tea break is sacred! As with any other
South African. In fact when I was doing my clinical practical I realized that you do not mess with a tea-break in Africa.
This has been reinforced as I have worked in various settings around South
Africa and seen this theory in play: You do not disturb a nurse’s tea break!
And there is no being flexible people! The building will be on fire and falling
in around the nurses tea room and they will not be moved until their 20 minutes
(or an hour in African time) is over. I remember trying to get a nurse to sign
a document for me on her tea-break. This took a lot of convincing (it’s like
sacrilegious to the tea-time god). Anyway… I have come to appreciate the need
for a ten minute sit-down-do-nothing-think-nothing-and-just-breathe break. This
is essential, especially when your day is made up of running between 3
different sites and seeing all-sorts. Most of the time my “tea break” happens
in my car, when I can put on a good song, compose my nerves and build up
battery power to make it through the next session. On a good day I am able to
sit at my desk and brew a special something (at the moment it is Woolworths
Vanilla Chai Tea! Yummo!) and browse Twitter or Facebook for an all too brief
20 minutes. Whatever form this break takes it is very important to be able to
recollect oneself and rest!
3. MY SAMSUNG GALAXY TABLET:
Ah, technology. I
haven’t quite graduated to an Apple iPad yet but this is something, ok? Actually in
South Africa, a Samsung is the wiser choice right now. Access to Apple products
is getting better but it is limited and expensive. Part of my rationale for
getting the tablet was that if there were apps that I found useful, that it
would be easier to recommend the android versions for the majority of patients
I see. I do have a few higher income patients that do own an iPad and then I
rely on app reviews and opinions of others in order to recommend appropriate
apps. (Great app reviews for speech therapists here). I have found that this little gadget has opened my world significantly. I
am able to access emails quicker, social media is life-saver and if I need to
look something up then there is a quick and portable way to do this. Not to
mention the screen-capture function (being able to take a screen shot of a
picture or idea and save it for later has proven invaluable). This also allows me to collate information all in one
place. Last year I attended a course at the University of Cape Town for
Clinical Educators. All our course work was emailed through to us and I saved a
lot of money on (not) printing and a lot of time on (not) filing. Plus I didn’t
have to lug around a massive bag full of paperwork!
4. FRIENDS:
Speechie friends are essential to my
development as a professional. Whether it’s meeting up with colleagues or girls
I graduated with or using social media to connect with other therapists around
the world. Bouncing ideas around, listening to new ideas, confirming a
suspected diagnosis or just crying about THAT patient is a blessing I don't take for granted. As speech therapists, I find that we are mostly very keen for new
insights and when we get together it is endemic to only talk SLP. When I get
together with the girls I studied with you can literally see the glaze clouding
over our non-speechie partners eyes. Every now and then one of our husbands
will chirp in with a “That sounds like aphasia.” and a smug grin that says "I've cracked your code!" Bless. They try. Then
there is social media. It has been so exciting to get to know(of) all the
#slpeeps out there. I have learnt new things, found new ways of doing old
things and seen that I am not alone in my obsessions.
5. A SENSE OF HUMOR:
Yes I am being super cheesy
about this last one. I have always and will always believe that laughter is the
best medicine. This idea has been supported in various places and here is a
link to an article discussing the benefits of humor in aphasia therapy. I enjoy my patients so very much and feel like
I have a unique relationship with each and every one. We joke. We laugh. But at
the end of the day they come to trust me and invite me into their lives to
improve their quality of life. It is also good to have a laugh at the end of
the day at one’s self. To find the funny moments and reflect. To be completely
honest I do think that the funny moments we experience in day-to-day therapy
sessions would make a good book! But then again we’d probably be the only ones
to find it exciting.
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