My job is going great and everything is coming together. I finally have a set schedule that is working well right now and all of my “patients” have been attending regularly. I love every minute I spend in the “specials” house, Santa Maria Reina. There are 2 teenage girls with CP (or possibly some genetic disorder that presents very similarly) who I work with trying to do range of motion, positioning and caregiver education. There is also a girl who has some significant physical and mental problems of unknown origin who is very challenging, but also very fun to work with. Another girl has residual problems resulting from a case of menengitis when she was a child. She is a very sad case because she is totally normal and bright in the cognitive sense, but trapped in a body that doesn’t function very well. She can walk, but with very poor coordination and balance making it really unsafe. I have been trying to find something to help her walk, but have been unsuccessful as of now. I also work with the “special” boys house, Casa Emmanuel. These boys have a large range of problems, but all of them can walk independently, although it isn’t always pretty.
My favorite day of the week is spent in Casa Angeles, which is a house in the city for those kids who are very significantly impaired and need to be close to doctors. These kids are the most challenging for me because many of them are in need of splints, braces and wheelchairs that can’t be afforded. They spend their days lying around in the big room of the house, but I am very impressed that every Wednesday most of them spend the morning in hippotherapy (for those who don’t know, this is therapy with horses). I attended the therapy once and was able to actually get on the horse with the kid and do therapy. It was great and the little boy was so much more cooperative than normal.
The rest of my work time is spent in the physical therapy gym in the school. There I treat the kids who have minor physical problems. Most of these kids are between the ages of 5 and 10 and just have some delays in coordination and strength development. For me, the biggest challenge with these kids is behavior. It is very different from my previous jobs in that there is no parent to discipline (or threaten discipline) the kids. It is also difficult for me to motivate them or scold them in Spanish. There are several older kids that receive physical therapy and they are much easier to work with, but still challenging in other ways. Louis is a sixth grader with torticollis. This is a shortening of the muscles on one side of the neck that causes the kid to maintain the head tilted to that side and rotated to the opposite side. It usually affects babies, but they either receive therapy or grow out of it by the time they start walking. Louis is proof that kids don’t always just grow out of it. He consistently has his head tilted and now has developed a significant spinal scoliosis. Because the position of his head is a habit that has developed for 12 years it is impossible for me to fix. My only goal is to keep it from getting worse and try to manage his scoliosis.
The other older kid that I work with, Angela, has a syndrome that has caused abnormal growth of her long bones, malpositioning of the joints and other various abnormalities like having 6 toes on each foot. However, she has normal cognition and is quite bright. A few years ago, she went to the States with an orthopedic doctor who volunteers on the ranch several times a year. He surgically repositioned the bones of her legs to allow her to walk more normally. She lived with his family in Minn for 9 months during the recovery time and she speaks English very well. She has been helping me with my Spanish. Again, my goal for her is to maintain her strength and mobility.
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