Hands On Education

Well, I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to post. Things have been extremely busy and have not even had time to check my e-mail. Ahhh – but I have survived.

My first session was from June 5th to June 10th. The session was for persons with Developmental Disabilities between the ages of 18 to 65. There were about 80 campers, 14 of which needed one-on-one assistance. So, I decided to sign up for one-on-one, I was assigned a 36-year-old male. His disability (as stated by his father) is severe mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and has Grand Mal seizures. He needed total care. He is also non-verbal and uses no sign language. He has the mental age of a 2-3 year old.

I also had five other counselors in my cabin that also had one-on-ones. We all ended up making a great team and helping each other out…which no other cabin of one-on-ones did. In our cabin we had all males. One was 30 years old autistic with cerebral palsy, and severe mental retardation; a 27 years old with down syndrome with autistics behaviors; a 29 year old with mental retardation and a seizure disorder; and a 47 year old with severe mental retardation.

Our 27 year old has a fascination with toilets. Our 47 year old loves shoes and stares at them all day long. Our 29 year old carries magazines around with him that he tears up when he gets mad, he had a couple of fits that were brought on by a rash that had developed. Due to the rash he attacked a couple of the counselors in my cabin and from that point on every step he made made them jump. All of the campers in my cabin had a mental age of 2-3 and were non-communicative.

On the last day of the camp we were so sad to see them go – we did not expect to get teary eyed when we gave them back to their parents, but every counselor in my cabin did. We were sad to see them go.

I have also developed a new sense of understanding for parent of child with special needs. To see what they have to go through day in and out…it amazes me.

Session 2 started yesterday, June 12th. This seesion is for persons with physical disabilities between the ages of 18 to 50. This time there are no one-on-ones. In my cabin there are 3 counselors and 5 campers. 2 of our campers are in power wheel chairs, and 3 of them are in manual wheelchairs. Only 2 of them can put wait on their feet. This is going to be a really hard session. I am gaining a lot of experience with lifting the campers and transferring them from chair to bed, showering them, feeding them, changing them, using bed pans, etc. There are some things here that I cannot believe they allow the counselors to do for example: removing impacted bowels, changing and cleaning catheters, and cleaning G-Tubes. I will not do these things because I am not trained in them…in the school system we are not even allowed to do these things the nurses do them. I have not had a camper with a catheter or a g-tube yet, but I know I will soon.

This experience is really tiring, but I love every minute of it. I cannot wait to get home and show everyone my pictures.