More of the same and a bit more

It’s not just me railing against the Medical Maze.  I found several posts of people struggling with healthcare and illustrating my rant on the problems with getting services.  The only online work I did in the past week - see Housekeeping below – is browsing the blogs I read regularly. Here are a few posts for you to consider.

Mir writes an extremely popular blog about her life that includes a child with a diagnosis. She recently posted: My Next Trick: HMO Grumbling (My name is Grumplestiltskin, Health is overrated). You will want to laugh and cry while reading her tale of woe about trying to get a specialist physician for her child.

Brandie helps us all when she writes to national media personalities to complain about how financing medical care is portrayed. On government funding of healthcare (Australia) nobody says it better than Moo’s Mom – both here and here.

On the other side of the white coat, you can read “A blog to help health care providers shorten wait times and improve patient flow.”  This blog shows just a slice of what the business of health care has driven us to accepting.  I have referred to some of my healthcare as “assembly line”.  I’m a supporter of efficiency, but a whole blog just on medical office wait times!  Keep in mind all the employees who manage the office for the physician have to be paid, too.

Kyron describes the wait for diagnostic results – with an apt photo of a woman screaming.  Jeannette's story of waiting for medication illustrates problems with insurance as the mediator of our medicine.

Nurse Julie gives us a bit more of a humane view of the other side – questioning the intent and care of a large government-funded agency.

I’ll bet many of you can relate to Bird’s anxiety over an upcoming PT evaluation.  Her post is not so much about the problems of payment, but with the stress already felt by parents trying to provide the best services for their child.  If you struggle with healthcare provision and cost and waits, you are not alone.  You might move into the arena and try to change the system for us all.  My personal and professional recommendation is to do the best you can for participating in medical care decisions for your child and your family.

Housekeeping:  I’ve corrected that poorly-constructed-sentence including “at the doorstep” in the previous post. That sentence has been glaring at me all week, and I just had to fix it first. All last week, and large chunks of time in the weeks immediately preceding, were focused on our first-born’s graduation from high school.  Since housekeeping has to do with maintenance of the blogsite, I’ll explain what has kept me busy, in part, by way of a story about myself.

The photo of me on this site was taken last year, on a rare day that I applied make-up.  I stopped daily make-up about three years ago when I returned to the role of “primary parent at home” – a title Studly Hubby and I made-up while he was a househusband for 10 years.  (See how much you can learn about me in just a few sentences!) 

The graduation ceremonies and after-celebration required I do the typical-girlie-dress-up-make-up-the-way-I was-raised-including-new-clothes-and-attention-to-every-detail-bordering-on-princess-behavior thing.

I have not painted my nails in more than 20 years, but I decided a clear gloss was in order for the baccalaureate event.  I bought a small innocuous-looking product labeled:  Instant Nail Gloss.  I opened it by twisting off the lid, but did not recognize what I saw.  I was expecting a paint-brush-like extension off the lid.  Not there.  Irritated, as I was in reprised princess-mode, I assumed I bought a defective bottle, and proceeded to pull the supposed-to-be-there brush out of the bottle with a small pair of scissors.  Yes, I did.  No brush appeared.  Darn!  If all else fails, read the instructions on the bottle. Turns out, the brush extended out from the bottle – not the lid!  And I had just ripped it from the top of the bottle!  Who knew?!  You will be most happy to know that despite dripping from an insufficient seal, I was able to cover all 20 of my nails with clear coat from the brush apparatus re-inserted into the bottle.

Nail polish segues into a child development lesson.

My struggle with the nail polish bottle illustrates problem-solving a psychomotor task.  I encountered a new object in a familiar situation, and had to work mentally and physically to get to my objective.  

Your therapists are specialists at problem-solving to create therapy for your children.  Occupational therapists are specialists in activity analysis – breaking into parts and ordering the sequence of a process. An activity analysis can lead to helping someone to learn the task or to adapting the task.  Physical therapists are specialists in movement analysis – with exceptional knowledge of anatomy and physiology, PTs can diagnose the source or reason for poor movement.  Movement analysis can lead to helping someone correct or improve their ability to move (walk, grasp, function).

The mental work of problem-solving or analysis begins early in life. An infant or toddler who wants something works to obtain through problem-solving using both thinking and movement. This work develops both the cognitive and motor systems. 

Thinking causes the brain cells to reach-out (dendritic formation) and form new connections between cells.  Movement causes muscle cells to grow and strengthen, and makes the neural connections between the brain and muscles stronger (coordination).

Repetition is imperative for these internal processes to become learned behavior.  Parents create and define the places where their children live and learn – giving opportunities for repetitive experiences leading to learning. 

Parenting is an awesome responsibility.  Give yourself some mental rewards (praise) for the hard work you do for your children.  I believe it will be worth it. Don’t give-up, and let your baby learn to do it for himself.

Comments

[Katy]

Ok--I need a little chiding on that one. [letting him learn]We're trying to teach Charlie to drop things. No small feat. He feels certain that shaking his latest toy will result in music (his major motivator), but you need to drop things inside of it instead. I felt like it was a lost cause, but with your encouragement, I will perservere.

[Abigail's Mama]

I needed a little chiding on the 'letting them learn' front too. But I gave it a go, and it has done wonders! My little girl is really enjoying figuring things out for herself, and I'm loving her getting on with it. Thank you Dr Boucher for the little nudge in the right direction!