Two Weeks

It is hard to believe that I have completed 2 weeks of my internship! It feels like I just got to Kansas City, let alone start working at the hospital. I have learned a ton and I know I will be learning a lot more. Although I have led a few interventions/activities with different kids and group, next week I get to jump in even more and take over group on my own. Exciting! Here are just a few of the things I have learned (or re-discovered in some cases):


Reasons why the Ukulele is awesome in interventions with kids:

1. It's small enough so kids can hold it and play it
2. The 'C' chord is just pressing down one string
3. You don't have to use a lot of pressure to hold down the strings
4. Kids love it and can be successful pretty easily
5. They get to accompany you and get to control the song

New (& not so new) instruments I love to use:

• ukulele
• kalimba- if you do not know what this is, you should check one out because it is so fun to play and see kids play it!
• boomwhackers- did you know that kids love to look through these and talk through these. Talking through one of these suckers got one of my nonverbal pts with a flat affect to smile!
• the quacker- it's this annoying little shaker type instrument that when you shake it or hit the top, it makes a quacking noise. It is a favorite of the little ones, but it is a PAIN to disinfect, because the slightest touch causes this huge QUACK! and people look around trying to figure out what that awful sound was
• ocean drum- I love it and I think I need my own, just for my own therapeutic purposes

One of the most fun/newest things for me has been working with babies who are not in the NICU. These are babies who are recovering from surgery but not quite ready to go home yet or in dialysis or have left the NICU. I love working with them on more developmental goals like passing a shaker from hand to hand across midline. The other day I got to see music therapy co-treat with physical therapy, and the physical therapist asked to co-treat with us! That was very cool. We were working with a baby and the PT is working on getting her to sit up (with support) and working on bending those knees and moving those legs! Since the pt is in a crib all day and the surgery she had, she cannot be on her stomach and even try to crawl, so it is important for that PT to help her reach those other developmental milestones so when she is physically able to crawl, she will be able to do it!


It's great learning other people's ideas and I love to modify them to work for me/ make up my own songs to use with them. The muse has been upon me these past two weeks and I have come up with about a dozen new songs on such vast topics as tapping a drum, hello, egg shaking, etc. Deep stuff. :D

Always learning

So yesterday I mentioned that Music Therapy is under the Child Life umbrella at CMH. Every so often the Child Life department offers inservices on different topics related to what they do, and as MT is under that, we get to go, too! This week it was all about working with adolescents and how to establish rapport and other things to be aware of when working with them. After talking about the problems and issues specific to adolescents in the hospital, the Child Life Specialists who were leading this one, gave us a lesson on what sort of people and things teens would be talking about. 


The first part was a slide show of a bunch of pictures of actors, actresses, and musicians that adolescents are familiar with and might talk about. They were just pictures with no names, and out of the thirty or so they showed, I am happy to say I knew all but two! And one is local to Kansas City, so he didn't really count. I owe it all to camp and the Juvenile Detention Center.


Then we went through a list of some current slang/lingo that adolescents might use. Some of it was a little disturbing, especially all that concerned drugs. We went over the slang terms not so we can use it and look like total dorks to the teens we will be working with, but so that we will know what they are talking about and be able to bridge that generation gap better, and know what sort of things they are dealing with at school. And we want look entirely stupid when they say some of it.


So it was a very cool and informative inservice. I have not yet in my internship worked with any adolescents one on one or observed that interaction, but I cannot wait until I get to!

Today I got to observe some co-treating with Music Therapy and Physical Therapy, as well as MT with Respiration Therapy. It was pretty cool to see how the other hospital staff values co-treating with Music Therapy.

Flexibility...

... is the backbone of a Music Therapist, especially one in a medical setting. The way the Music Therapists (MT) work here is by talking to the Child Life Specialist (CLS) on the floor and they tell us who music therapy would be good for today and a little about them (family present, procedures they have had done recently, etc). Some days you could have six kids to see on a floor and you get there and they are ALL asleep! So then you go to another floor and see a few kids there, then head back up to the floor you started on to see if any kids are awake. If not then you try again later! I had planned an intervention for a patient (pt) I had seen last week, but found out that she was discharged last night. Such is the life of a medical MT.

Then there is the group session. The one we had today is once a week on a particular floor and all are invited-if they're not in isolation. So one week you might just have siblings because all of the patients are in isolation, or you might just have one, OR you might have a toddler and a 15-year-old. Or like today, you may have a big mix of pts, siblings, and a variety of ages. I got to lead an activity and the hello song and it went great! It went so well that I get to lead the group session by myself next week!! Woohoo, I'm pretty stoked. Stay tuned for a post on the CL inservice on adolescents that I went to today!

Week One: Adventures and Interventions

Week one of my 6 month internship is complete!! Woohoo! I survived and only got a little lost in the hospital one time. The week started off with a bang with me reading a ton of policies, but also getting to observe on day one. By the end of the week my eyes were have crossed from reading, BUT I got to lead an activity on the ukulele with a girl in isolation and hold or play the guitar with the babies. good stuff!

Now on to the adventures portion of this little post.... I ride the bus to and fro every day and have the schedule pretty much worked out. Naturally, I thought I missed my stop the first day and almost made a DISASTROUS mistake because of that, but it all turned out okay! Today I tested out the bus ride to and from Target, and once again, there were almost horrible consequences of me not being able to find my bus stop to get picked up there. Google maps was wrong. W-R-O-N-G about where it was located. Luckily I was ready to go thirty minutes before I needed to be so I had plenty of time to wander around while mom told me where it should, SHOULD, be.

This morning I visited this lovely little shop called, Sheehan's Irish Imports, which is right up the street from me. If any of you know me, then you know that I am a wee bit obsessed with Irish culture and history, so this shop was love at first sight! One of the women who worked there brought me some Irish tea as I perused the lovely merchandise, ranging from jewelry to pottery to musical instruments to books to religious medals to Irish blessings to clothing to wall hangings to food to... pretty much anything you could ever want from Ireland. Except maybe an accent, although they did have instructional books to help you learn to speak Irish! I will be making many more trips back there, as well as to Browne's Irish Market. KC has a HUGE Irish/other obsessive people population here. They also gave an Irish music school. I might just have to take a few tin whistle classes!

Another place right up the street (and two doors down from Sheehan's) is Bethlehem Bakery, a Middle Eastern bakery and eatery. I have had some of their handmade pita bread, and it is fantastic!

Anyhoo that's all for now. I have things to plan for the session I get to co-lead next week. woo!

Kansas City...

… is great!

I am mostly moved in to my little studio apartment; just a few more things to unpack! The building is originally from 1949- and not too much of the apartment has changed since then. Haha. It’s small, but it’s quaint and I love it, and above all else, the location is FABULOUS. It’s in a sort of residential area in the city and looks relatively safe. The hospital is in midtown, and is only a short bus ride away! (the bus stop I need is right in front of my building). A few other things within walking distance of my apartment:

• Country Club Plaza- think summit, except better, and modeled after the plaza in Seville, Spain. This place is the bomb.com. It has every store you could want, from J Crew to Old Navy to Urban Outfitters, plus TONS of restaurants, designer brand stores, cafes, and Barnes and Noble. Good old B&N will be my destination for internet access until Time Warner cable sets mine up on Wednesday. And there is a movie theatre here, so I will have no trouble going to see Harry Potter! Anyways, the plaza is gorgeous, drivable, and walk-able, but if you want a different kind of tour of the place, you can always get a carriage ride. Want any more romance? You can also take a ride on a gondola!
• Westport- it’s the oldest area of KC. Back in the 1800s, Westport was the place to be if you were headed west. All the major western trails met at Westport. If the Plaza is like the Summit, then Westport is more akin to Atlanta’s Little Five Points.
• A HUGE Catholic church. And a Presbyterian church. And another Catholic church. And an Episcopal church. Limestone is native to this area of the country, and almost all the churches are built of it entirely. They look like castles. Needless to say, I will be church shopping over the next couple of Sundays. I have always wanted to go to a church that looked like a castle!
• A liquor store. Actually, TWO liquor stores. I can see one from the other one’s parking lot.
• Cancer Survivor Park
• A huge Sun Fresh grocery store

There is also a Target and actual mall on the bus line!

I think I will survive my stay here. Tomorrow is the big first day of my internship. Holy goodness I am excited and scared all at the same time. Even if this week is absolutely horrid, I get to look forward to the Irish Street Festival on Saturday!! Haha, but I know my internship will be great. 6:00 is going to come a little early, but that’s okay. I can’t wait!

t minus seven days...

UNTIL I START MY INTERNSHIP!!!! woohoo!! In just a few days I will be moving into my studio apartment in Kansas City and getting ready to start the busiest, scariest, and most exciting 6 months of my life. This is going to be a crazy time for me, and an exciting adventure! While I am there, I have a few things I want to check off my list.

1. be the best intern they have ever seen!!! By that I mean to throw myself into this internship and be the best I can be (cheesy, I know) and learn all sorts of Justin Bieber, other kids songs, etc, and step out of my comfort zone and go for it!
2. develop lasting connections with my supervisors at the hospital (and doctors, and nurses...)
3. learn all that I can so that I can start my own program at a hospital one day
4. make awesome friends who want to go see Harry Potter with me! haha
5. be creative with my new apartment furnishings= I'm thinking of a 'Bohemian palace' feel. Lots of pillows, and not much furniture- because furniture takes up too much space in the car....
6. find all the cool, artsy, inexpensive places to visit, shop, eat, explore....
7. bounce ideas off of my friends who are all in their mt internships across the country.
8. find Alabama fans to watch the games with this season!
9. know the bus system like the back of my hand
10. oh, and finish planning my wedding?

There are lots more things I am going to do, and want to do while I am there, but those seem to be the biggest and most important ones.

I can't wait to start working at a children's hospital! It is going to be awesome.

What a long, strange trip it's been...

I know it's cliche, but I just went to my little brother's high school graduation and it seemed appropriate. It really got me thinking about a lot, but two things especially: first, how much things have changed since I graduated high school, and second, how this year's senior class at the University of Alabama really got something special taken away from them. I will start with the latter first.

Pretty much everyone knows about the tornadoes that swept through Alabama in April and destroyed a good portion of the state and Tuscaloosa. What you might not know is that, although the university was not hit, the University of Alabama decided (and rightly so) to cancel classes and finals so that students and faculty could focus on rebuilding and helping in our community. This year's commencement ceremony was also canceled and moved to August. Though a long and many times boring ceremony, graduation is a time to reflect on what has been and look to what is coming in a big "woo hoo!" kind of way. While I was not planning on walking, I would change that now to walk in August if it was possible! I hope that as many of fellow classmates that can attend do. I would be right beside you if I was not going to be in Missouri!! This ceremony in particular will be a testament to our fine institution and the amazing sense of community that Tuscaloosa has, especially in the wake of the heartbreaking tornado. Someone needs to tell me all about it!!

Now on to the other part. I cannot believe that I am about to start a 6 month internship that will end my undergraduate education. It's crazy!! So much has changed since I was only a mere high school grad. People you hung out with all the time are now only acquaintances, and you talk to people you never expected to keep in touch with. people you thought you would be best buds with at the start of college are little more than facebook friends, and you ended up getting closer to someone you initially hardly talked to. oh and I totally never expected to fall in love my freshman year of college and be engaged right now. weird....

This time in two weeks I will have started my internship and will be working full time at a children's hospital (which is something I have wanted to do for forever)!!! It is a little scary and a bit hard to believe! But I can't wait to see what other changes are in store.