Saying bye to Rachel

My work baby shower

The last month of summer hasn't all been sunshine, though.  Rachel, my sister who has been my best friend all my life, moved to Alaska with her husband.  For the months leading up to their move we tried our best to hang out regularly. We binged European sci-fi shows together, went on walks, and tagged along with our husbands and their buddies, the only two girls in the group. 

We also encountered a few rescue kitties, including Sako, a young cat found outside the college dorms by our brother's girlfriend  (the same girlfriend who found my Atticus two years ago).  Rachel had thought she would never have a cat, but within ten minutes of meeting Sako her husband Dick decided they should foster him until they found the original family or until they moved to Alaska.  They were living short-term with our friend Mug, who consented to housing the cat.  Sako looked a lot like Dick's childhood cat, and we originally thought he was a purebred Russian Blue, which would make him hypoallergenic for Dick. Unfortunately as Sako matured over those few months, the allergens started to kick in, but alas it was already decided that Sako would be a permanent resident at Mug's.  It wasn't long after taking in Sako that Mug, Rachel and Dick found a pair of 5-week-old kittens and their mama in the backyard under the deck. We contacted a rescue who recommended that we trap the kittens so they could start being socialized.  (The mom ideally would be trapped, spayed and released back to where we found her).  We all took care of the kittens, making sure they were fed and comfortable in the house until another foster family picked them up.  

The evening before the move, my parents flew up. Dick, a hunter, had been saving all of his best meat for a special occasion but now had to grill it all up for the family because it wouldn't save on the trip.  I had spent the whole day with Rachel, helping her pack and going with her for a last bite of food she wouldn't have in Alaska (such as In-N-Out), and finally decided to go to bed and drive back down at 5 in the morning to say my goodbyes.   Dick had a giant trailer packed full of all their belongings, and with my parents helping to drive their other vehicle they were ready for the 52+hour drive to Alaska. 

Dallin and I also moved, albeit only 20 minutes away from where we previously lived.  I wasn't allowed to lift boxes because I was in my late second trimester, but I had started packing a few weeks before the move and meticulously labeled all the boxes so that people would know where to put them on the big day. We had started collecting furniture prior to the move, and combining two big sofas plus baby furniture plus the growing stack of boxes all in one small apartment made me and Dallin (and even the cats) go absolutely bonkers.  We couldn't sell the old sofa until we could clean it, but that would be impossible until the cats and their summer shedding were relocated to the new place.  Moving to our new apartment, which has three bedrooms and a garage, felt like moving into a mansion. It's been almost three weeks since we moved and tonight we finally finished the rest of the decorating! Our wallets are a little sad, but I think it looks really nice! We had help from Dallin's little sister Hannah, who is considering going into interior design. 

Arlo and Atticus have quickly acclimated to the new place and love running up and down the stairs.

Dallin's stepdad is a pilot, and he flew up Dallin's sister Hannah the day Dick and Rachel moved away. I think Dallin wanted to keep me distracted, and Hannah had talked about how much she enjoyed Utah when she stayed with us about 3 years ago. That first night we went to the town carnival, and I bought fancy grilled cheeses for the three of us while Dallin and Hannah rode on the rides.  That week we watched scary movies, went to the aquarium, went on hikes, and drove around rich neighborhoods. To quote Hannah, "I need to be rich so I can have a house like that."  More in the next posts! 

The past ten weeks I have been very busy learning how to be a speech pathologist in the medical setting.  The speech therapists there are divided into four teams: stroke, TBI, spinal cord injury, and poly-trauma. I was on the poly-trauma team, so I worked with a lot of people who suffered from craniotomies, injuries not just specific to head or spinal cord, critical illness myopathy, and "Long COVID"(being so severely impacted by COVID that there usually required being trached). If I understood correctly, the Long COVID patients were those whose overall physical and cognitive function declined due to the virus attacking their whole neurological system. While at the rehab hospital, they worked on regaining use of their limbs (the severity depended on the person), their swallow, and learning strategies to compensate for executive functioning deficits such as decreased memory, attention, problem-solving, and reasoning. So far research is seeing that cognitive function can take 18 months or so to resolve. 

I worked a lot with dysphagia, which meant a lot of swallow rehabilitation. I taught swallow exercises and used AmpCare, in which small electrodes are placed on the neck to pull the muscles up and forward to provide resistance while the patient swallows. I monitored and modified patient diet textures to maximize safety. I helped with FEES (in which an endoscope is threaded through the nose to get an aerial view of the larynx and watch if a patient is protecting the airway while eating green-dyed foods) and administered MBS (in which the patients eat/drink barium of different textures to watch the safety/efficiency of the swallow on an X-ray).  I loved being able to see patients upgrade from NPO diets (all food via feeding tube) to an oral diet, or from a modified oral diet (e.g. pureed, minced, chopped, soft, etc.) to more regular textures.  

I also worked on cognitive skills, and though I didn't work with it a lot directly, I loved seeing aphasia treatment. To see people with Broca's or Wernicke's Aphasia go from an inability to communicate their needs to having so much more control of the words in their mouth was incredible!  

At the rehab hospital, patients worked hard so they could go back home.  It was a powerful experience indeed to see people who suffered such severe illness or injuries who were able to overcome so much.  

I tried barium. It was nasty.

My supervisor did an endoscopy on me so I could know what it felt like and so I could see my own vocal folds. Apparently I have a very sensitive pharynx because I was coughing, gagging, sneezing and sputtering.