Note: For posts about previous visits, including my sensory assessment, see the Occupational Therapy category, to the right of this post.

My OT rocks! I am so lucky.

I drove down to my OT appointment this afternoon on about 4 1/2 hours of sleep. I had gone to bed reasonably early, but then woke up at 3:45 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Instead of fretting about it, I meditated awhile, thought about what I’d like to do with the day, and tried to relax till daybreak. Then, I got my daughter up for school and, once she was on her way, decided to do some joint compressions by going out into my front yard at 7 am and digging up what’s left of the grass. Very therapeutic. An hour and a half later, I had breakfast and then worked out on my bike. Also very therapeutic.

Then, just before I left for my appointment, I had a nice talk with a neighbor about the work I was doing in the garden. The talk didn’t last for more than 10 minutes, so I actually succeeded in keeping track of the entire conversation. I like it when that happens.

Finally, I got in the car and drove for an hour to my appointment. I was really looking forward to going. Why? Because my OT rocks!

Oh, right, I already said that. Well, here’s why she rocks:

1. She is friendly in a genuine way.
2. She has a great sense of humor.
3. She is sensitive to my sensory needs.
4. She knows how hard I work just to get through the day.
5. She wants to know how I’m doing.
6. She is very practical.

This list is not exhaustive, but hey, I don’t have all the time in the world here, and I’m trying to learn brevity. (How am I doing so far?)

It seems like nearly everything we did today involved music, which was wondrous.

But first things first: When I got there, she asked me what I needed in order to ground, and before she even got the words out of her mouth, I said, “Thumper!” (Quirky Mom, you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph.) She used that divinely inspired machine on my back, and this time, I could feel the vibrations in my nasal cavities and in my lips. Pure heaven.

Then, she asked me how the Therapeutic Listening was going. I really love the Mozart for Modulation CD, but found that I’ve been getting a lot of migraines lately. She thought it might have to do with the fact that I sometimes listen for more than a half hour at a time. When I’m out gardening, I lose track of time and have probably listened to the CD for 45 minutes to an hour in one session. The music is really working my ears, so even though I don’t feel like I’m working hard, I am. She said that for the next two weeks, I should start by listening to the CD for 20 minutes, twice a day, once while resting and once while being active (doing chores, having dinner, and so forth). I’m supposed to increase my listening time by 2-3 minutes every 1-2 days.

That sounded good. Then, I got to choose a new CD. I started by listening to one that had children’s songs on it. It was kind of sweet and appealed to the childlike Aspie aspects of my soul, but when the alphabet song started, my brain got really hooked on the letters. The whole point of the exercise is to listen to the CD without fully concentrating on it. In other words, the point is to multi-task. If I get hooked on the letters, I’m giving the music too much attention.

So she gave me another CD, one with water and dolphin sounds, along with some sort of music in the background. It drove me nuts. The music had no center. I don’t know why some people find that relaxing, because it makes me want to cry.

My OT said we didn’t have a lot more choices for this stage in my Therapeutic Listening life, but perhaps I’d like a Vivaldi for Modulation CD? OMG! Heaven. Absolute heaven. I love Vivaldi with a passion. So I was a happy camper. I listened to Vivaldi while my OT asked me a lot of questions about other parts of my sensory diet. I’ll share a little about that.

I love working out on my bike and singing with the Annie Lennox Medusa CD. It’s a 45-minute CD, and I listen to it twice. I’m noticing that my singing voice is getting much stronger and clearer, and that I’m singing with more of my body. It feels great. My husband loves the CD too, so sometimes, he’ll come in and do paperwork and sing with me. It’s way fun.

I’ve also relearned Torah cantillation, and have been choosing random portions of Torah to chant every couple of days. It makes me feel really great to know that I can just pick up any passage and follow the cantillation marks without much trouble. When my husband and I were leading services, I would prepare a Torah portion, and it always felt like a lot of pressure. Now that I’m doing things for my own enjoyment, they’re much more fun. I’m not chanting Torah in preparation for any kind of public gathering. I’m just chanting because I love it. In Jewish tradition, it’s customary to rock back and forth when you’re chanting or praying, so I get to do movement that feels very natural to me.

A few weeks back, I xeroxed some lines from Torah and put them on a door in the kitchen. There are three groups of words. I have to look up to see one, I have to look directly in front of me to see another, and I have to look down to see the last one. My task is to start from 10 feet away, chanting from the top, while walking forward and backward. Kind of like walking and chewing gum, except harder. I had been practicing this exercise a few weeks ago, and the OT said to reinstate it. I enjoyed the exercise before, so that will be fun as well.

So, there you have it. I left the appointment feeling very relaxed and focused. On my way home, I even had the energy to stop at a store that sells perennials. I bought a few (okay, eight) to bring home and plant. When I got home, I was quite tired, but lying down didn’t help, so I went back out and attacked the remaining grass in my front yard. It is now gone. Time to start planting the garden!

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg