I thought my week was taking an turn for the better after a great fitting yesterday with my patient. We were not able to make all of the final modifications because his residual limb was starting to become painful after having tried on so many sockets and been walking for a few hours so we made plans to meet 45 minutes early this morning. We were slotted to give the first presentation for critique at 8:00am so I told my patient that I would meet him at the school at 7:15. This seemed like a terrible decision when my alarm went off this morning and had there been no patient responsibility, I would have turned it off and gone right back to bed. I did manage to get up and look professional and presentable and get out the door on time.
10 minutes into my journey and my car breaks down on the side of the road. No, I am not kidding. Should it have surprised me after the week I was having?? It was driving a little strange this morning, but I kept thinking it just needed to get going...only after I heard a noise at a traffic light that I thought was a motorcycle behind me and smelled something funny did I realize it was my car that was being so offensive. Luckily, I was able to get a ride into school - barely running in the door at 7:57am, but this meant that I had stood up my patient and not gotten to put the leg on him before critique.
I felt terrible about not meeting my patient, but I was able to get ahold of him at 7:15 to let him know why I was not showing up. I have learned that it is not worth it to get upset about the things in life that we cannot control. I did everything in my power to get there early and it just was not meant to be. I was definitely feeling a little frantic trying to get myself together for critique and my patient's leg was smaller today than it was yesterday...meaning that perfectly fitting socket that had worked out so well yesterday fit a little big today, but all in all, the critique went well. Frankly, I was just so happy that I had made it to school on time and was able to get through it all.
We spent the afternoon cleaning up all of the lab and machine rooms and scraping plaster off the floor in order to have a fresh start next week when we begin transfemoral amputations. I am looking forward to the short day tomorrow...we had a midterm last night and an in-class quiz today...not to mention the three different assignments that are due in the morning. I feel like every waking hour I have had this week has been devoted to prosthetics...not necessarily a bad thing, but I have also been swimming upstream doing all of it and I am exhausted!!
And finally, to continue in the way my week has gone...I opened my backpack about an hour ago to start working on the aforementioned assignments, only to find out that my spiral notebook (the one that has two of my three assignments in it) is missing. I know I had it in critique this morning and somehow it did not make it back into my backpack. I am still working on problem-solving how to get those assignments done before class starts tomorrow...they are papers given to us to fill out so I do not have access to them just on my own. Looks like another day where I will be heading in early...anyone want to give me a ride??
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