Day 6 - Smiles & Laughter

Monday. The beginning of the week brings newness. We went to the rehab centre this morning and observed some children who now able to sit up, roll over, and stand for a little bit, so see which ones we can assess and move up to the preschool class. Some of these children’s physical appearance is deceiving. I saw this one child and her size and ability was of a 1 ½ year old, but when I asked the mother, she told me that her child was 4 years old.

Luisa and I were able to modify and adjust 2 children’s wheelchairs. We were quite excited as we felt like this is something that’s more tangibly OT. Problem solving with the straps and harnesses, placing of foam cushions, seeing if there are any other modifications needed to help the children be in a better, more comfortable, and more functional position. By the end of those 2 hours, our hands were red, scratched from the wooden seat insert, and we were tired, however, we felt a sense of accomplishment. Some of those straps were very stubborn and the holes they were supposed to go through were not helping us.

Such a big and bright smile!

Using recycled bicycle parts to make wheelchairs. That's how it's done! So don't need specialists to fix and other people who know some basic knowledge would be able to maintain it and fix the small stuff.

We also did 2 fine motor and visual motor and perception assessments today. I’m getting more comfortable with these assessments and what to do, but since I don’t know the language, it’s still very hard to communicate to the children. One of the people we did an assessment on is a 23 year old male, B, who is currently in Standard 4. An incident happened when he was about 6 years old. He did not start learning how to read or write until he was 20 years old. The assessment we did today, I was amazed at his ability to write and understanding. Both of them worked so hard and had big smiles on their faces whenever they were able to do something. God is good.

After work, Luisa and I needed some chill time, so we decided to pull out the guitar and keyboard and had a jam session. It was so much fun! We had lots of laughs and giggles that we might even make this a nightly thing. Stay tuned for more.