Back to the good ol' days of home visits

Last Thursday I went on two home visits – one was for 'W', a 5 y.o. little boy with cerebral palsy, who attends the school where I will be volunteering(school opens this week – can’t wait!) and one for 'J', a 9 y.o. girl with autism who attends a private school, but was requesting some in-home therapy ideas from Fern (the founder of the school where I will be volunteering). I can’t even tell you how good it felt to be using my PT skills both mentally and physically again. The occupational therapist and I walked to 'W'’s home – as it was in the slum, Kangemi, next to the school – and were greeted by his grandmother, his primary caregiver. 'W' greeted me with a huge, warm smile and giggle – I know we are going to be buds. I observed Joshua, the OT, working with 'W' in a very similar manner I would have, and then I assisted him with his therapy. I was quite impressed by the stander/adaptive seating device someone from the community made for 'W', although 'W' didn’t seem to be too big a fan. When the session was over we left 'W' safely lying on the couch, where he was when we arrived. The look of sadness on his face when we said goodbye made my heart drop – I couldn’t help but wonder how much of his day is spent lying on the couch. I am hopeful he will be attending school on a consistent basis, if not Joshua informed me we would be doing home visits for therapy – I was relieved to hear that.

For the second home visit, 'J'’s mother picked us all up at the school and brought us to her home. The main purpose of the visit was for Fern and Joshua to teach 'J'’s mother infant massage techniques as a calming mechanism for her daughter. After an hour or so Fern and Joshua were able to have 'J' cooperate to demonstrate/perform the massage – and I got to learn it, which I was quite enthused about. It is customary for families to feed you while you are in their homes and it is considered impolite if you refuse their offerings. Needless to say, I ate more than I needed to on Thursday – but it was delicious, authentic Kenyan food, how could one resist?