Seeing the wife – I've worked a whole month!!!.

Seeing the wife – I've worked a whole month!!!.

Saturday 22^nd June was the first Saturday after Katie had started her job, so of course we had to celebrate with lunch...bubbles and lunch.

The most convenient place for us to meet was London, so st Pancras station it was...where we were planning our trip to paris and drink in the champagne bar as a treat for being amazing OTs ha!

We walked from St pancras, (or 'saaaaint pancreas' as the silly lady next to me on the train was calling it) into Covent garden and went for lunch in carluccios, it was a nice day with lovely weather for the most part – there was an odd shower or two- we spent farrr too long in the restaurant because it became obvious they were attempting to usher us out, but it was wonderful, and so nice to catch up. I was mucho sad to say goodbye at the end of the day. It was so nice, and felt so normal, to be ladies that lunch, although to travel to London for lunch – is that a bit excessive?

The following week at work was my 4^th...a whole month...I had survived a whole month, almost!

By this point I felt good, I knew my wards, I knew the staff (well most of them, although it didn't mean I necessarily knew their names!) and felt like I was no longer treading water, but actually getting to grips with my case load a bit more! It's so surreal, this time last year I had finished my 2^nd year placement and was looking forward to 3^rd year...and now I am out there, a qualified and registered OT on the ward doing my thing without that constant support of someone being with you most of the time...I am an OT...I'm doing the job I've wanted to do, and trained for, and worked hard for, and given up so so much over the past 3 years of uni. AWESOME!!!

I got paid that week. Wow what a brilliant feeling...odd mind, because as a student I'm used to working 40+ hours on placements and not earning anything...but now, yeah it was a good day! I text the wife, she was also equally excited.

On the Saturday (29^th) I picked up the keys to my new house! Well...I picked the keys up an hour and a half after my first delivery arrived, and thank god the landlord had left a key with the neighbour – cute, but very predictable!! Thankfully quick thinking uncle asked said neighbour and my new and expensive mattress had arrived!! Then the paperwork and the boring bits were done at the estate agent, and lunch was purchased from town, before returning to find that very swiftly my washing machine, fridge and freezer were delivered and installed, despite me only paying for the washing machine to be installed – bonus!! It took us both 6 hours to scrub the kitchen top to bottom and make it clean enough for me to be happy to use...it's still not clean enough now!! The only downside to the day was that my bed frame wasn’t delivered, and so the mattress has had to go on the floor...oh well at least it's comfy!!

Second month – first week.

I've realised that I'm so lucky to be working in a team where all of the team, no matter what band, or job title are really approachable and make time to support me with whatever it is I need instruction with, whether it's equipment provision, risk assessments, complex discharge planning, or just reassurance – they have been brilliant! The team has a lovely atmosphere, and it's not got lots of little unwelcoming groups, or a 'them and us' vibe between qualifieds and the OTAs/OTAPs.

I've got a great supervisor who's great for grabbing at lunch time and just running something by her, or bleeping her with a question, and an equally great OT who does my supervisions. I've always been able to utilise the information, support and advice I've been given in supervisions, and that is feedback I've always got – but what I have almost always struggled with is taking the time to plan supervision and remembering to put things on the agenda.

I had a particular situation with a patient and their care that I found I really was bothered by, and mostly because what happened and the resulting actions were mainly out of my control, but this was something I brought up in supervision and it really helped me to step back from the situation and view it objectively – something that I may need to make an objective for my appraisal!!

At the end of the week I encountered a situation which really threw me. Firstly I realised that I am not able to manage conflict as well as I thought, secondly, I'm not as assertive as I thought and lastly that I questioned my ability and clinical judgements, which is strange because I am usually able to think logically and reason out any dissonance.

It's a situation that I will reflect upon privately, as it wouldn't be appropriate for me to do so publicly on here, and it's something that I will use to develop my practice. At the time I felt every emotion all at once, and for the most part was either angry, frustrated or upset, and this was mainly aimed at myself.

I came home and out of ? Frustration, or whatever emotion it was and was close to tears, although when I talked it through (upholding confidentially of course) with a non-OT person to whom I had to explain my actions to for the whole scenario to make a lick of sense I realised that actually my judgements and resulting actions were sound. I ended up in a heightened emotional state and lost all objectivity – a place I now will never end up in! In retrospect what I should have done was grab a senior, run it through with them, explain how I was feeling, and talk it through – I would have been able to accept what I later realised, that I acted correctly. Instead I ended up fixated on the situation all weekend, running through my actions and decisions time and time again, and it really affected my ability to enjoy my weekend – despite being out in company and at a music event I found my self drifting off and thinking about it.

Going into work on the monday morning was difficult, I felt physically sick and nervous like the first day of school – a strange feeling as I've never felt like that for anything before. I talked it though and closed that particular episode of care on that day, and it was fine, but it gave me a lot to think and reflect upon.

I suppose I under estimated the power that the support,t not just clinical but emotional too, that can be provided by an informal supervision with someone more senior, because it's very probably that they would have been in one (or more) situations very similar and possibly more difficult than the one you are encountering.