Wednesday, November 2, 2016

The O.T. or How would you answer the question. Update 7-10-2020

   Granted, I don't think I've ever encountered an Occupational Therapist before, and definitely not in a professional capacity.  Plenty of Physical Therapists though, and I'm aware there is a distinction between  the services they provide.  Even so, I was not expecting the question the therapist posed, nor was I prepared for the answer it evoked.
    Addressing the patient, he asked, "What would you consider a good day?"  Almost without hesitation, the response was, "Yesterday my daughter and her 2 boys picked me up and we drove over to a fish fry place for lunch, and then we stopped at my brother's house.  She and the kids helped me up the steps and I sat and enjoyed a talk with him for a while."
   I don't know why this seemed so significant at the time, or why it still does, or for that matter why I'm writing this through tears, maybe effects of  the CMA.  I asked an old friend this question tonight and she replied, "To be in Paris without fear of terrorists."
   I contemplate how I would answer this question.  The odds of my ever being asked are infinitesimal, not being likely to ever receive  this type of therapy and even less likely that any other therapist  would ask that question.  Still my mind attempts an answer:  Is the good day one that's already passed, or one that's yet to come, is the day to be one that may be possible, or is it a day of fantasy and dreams.  My mind is essentially empty now, blocked by the unwanted answer to an impossible question, and struggles to leap over that chasm to an answer, any answer.  For now, the two choices are the same:  the reality scenario is just as much a fantasy as the other.  I decide my idea of a good day would to be able to decide how to answer, and to pretend there was the possibility that one could happen.

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