I Think I Can, I Think I Can

I must keep repeating this to myself in order to make it through till the end of the day tomorrow.  After a long week of feeling pressed for time and rundown with so much schoolwork in the evenings, we had another 10 hour day at school and this time, 9 of it was sitting through lectures and demonstrations.  It is really just too tough to do a full day of that.  I think everyone benefits more from a mixed day - half of hands on things and half lecture.  It is very stressful and exhausting to have a full day of hands on work (although it goes by MUCH faster), but it is way too mentally taxing to have a full day of lectures.  It is obvious to everyone that by about 2:00, the instructors have completely lost their audience and we are all pacing the back of the room just to stay awake!!

Today we watched a professor modify the Syme's cast that he made yesterday.  You think that staring at your own plaster mold and trying to take plaster away and add it on is tough...imagine staring at someone else doing that...for 3 hours!!  It is not that exciting when your own hands are dirty, it is quite literally watching plaster dry when someone else is doing it.  As I mentioned yesterday, it is just tough to watch someone perform these demonstrations because I will not have a Syme's patient again until they are my own and I can almost 100% guarantee you that when that time comes, in at least a year from now, I will not be able to recreate what I "watched" for 4 hours one time in prosthetic school.  After the modification viewing, we went to watch another professor show us how we are casting our patients for our sockets next week.  This was informative and interesting (and only lasted an hour), so much more bearable.  In this picture, Mark (the instructor) is pulling on the pin hole at the end of the liner to show how much these liners can move when locked down with a pin in the end of a socket.  Next week we are creating pin and lock liners.  This is where the liner has a hole in the bottom (as pictured above) and through that hole what looks like a giant screw goes through and into a hole that is laminated into the bottom of the socket.  Instead of just having the socket suspended with silicone or the sleeve suspension that we have been using, it gives them a really secure way to know they are completely locked into the socket.  Without hitting the release pin on the side, their leg is not coming off :)

Another added bonus to this casting today (or it might end up working against me), was that Mark casted the guy who is going to be my patient next week!  So I got a little preview and some inside tips into what liners to put on him and what the best way is to cast him...I think that will be really helpful, but like I said, could work against me in the way that my professors also have casted him so they know what to be looking for in my socket.  I am looking forward to trying a new technique and the pin and lock system next week - we also get another chance to laminate (where we added the skin color last time) and I think they are going to let us pick fun fabrics to put on the socket!  It is the little things like that that keep you going through these long weeks...

It must be said...the end of the day was a little bit miserable.  We listened to a 2 hour lecture on thigh joints and lacers - a technique that has been around since the end of the first World War (the last time it was really considered revolutionary) and was used as a suspension system to hold a prosthesis onto a leg.  Our instructor said (repeatedly) that this was something we were probably never going to see in our career and probably never make.  Nonetheless, we apparently needed to spend a really long time learning about them anyway.  And then spend another hour and a half learning how to make the pattern for what would become a thigh lacer...and THEN yet another hour, making these patterns ourselves on our classmates.  As you can tell, I was not crazy about this activity.  I have no problem learning things, staying for long days and well past 5:00, I just have a problem doing so when I am being told over and over that it is basically pointless.  At least try and sell me on it and tell me that this is something really important that I must know how to do!!  I mean, looking at this picture, it is obvious we have come a long way in creating suspension systems for prosthetics and I like learning the history, it was just a lot of history and spending a lot of time on a project that seemed to not have a lot of practical value in it.  In the end, I obviously survived and I think once I have a weekend break from school, I will be in a better place mentally.  We have had work to do at home every night this week (I am about to take a quiz online right now) and I think I am just a little bit worn out from it all.

In regards to the feedback from my professors, I received an email back saying all really positive and encouraging things, but like I had suspected, he suggested that I do indeed take advantage of all of the free materials at school and do a couple of other projects just for practice.  So Monday when I pour my mold for the patient, he said to pour two and use one for the grade and critique next week and use one in my spare time for learning and practice.  I think if I do this on the next few projects it will really help me become much more adept and confident in my hand skills.  Granted, it seems as though I will be spending much more time in the lab than I had bargained for, but I know it will pay off in the long run. Tomorrow is a short day and I am very thankful.  Just have to make it though four hours of lecture and then free for the weekend.  I think I can, I think I can...