Party but Promise to Always Remember

Hello everyone! 

I hope your weekends were lovely. I had a very busy weekend that included both a track meet and a yoga triathlon (what? a yoga triathlon? yeah it was amazing). But honestly, I used my weekend mostly to reflect on what I experienced on Thursday and Friday, my LAST days at Bridges.

It was a bittersweet ending--as many endings are--but I couldn't have asked for a better send-off. The amazing staff at Bridges bought cake and snacks on Thursday to celebrate the end of both my and Cassie's internships. I did not expect something like that at all and was so unbelievably touched by it! (Randy, Anna, Ali, Emily, Kris...if any of you are reading this, thank you again! You are all amazing). This internship experience could have gone in so many directions, but the staff members at Bridges were all so warm and inviting that I didn't feel at all out of place. I cannot express how thankful I am for that.

Anywho, Thusday was an amazing beginning of the end at Bridges. Kris, the OT at Bridges let me sit in on both her morning group session (where we threw around an inflatable ball to a metronome beat) and on a formal patient evaluation. Yes, I finally saw a MOCA test being administered. Remember this thing?

At one point, I thought I would be able to use the MOCA in my research, but it is a little bit too quantitative for my project and would be much better for a long term study. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by Kris's evaluation and loved watching how the patient filled out each part of the assessment.

My favorite part of the day on Thursday was definitely art therapy, though. Later in the afternoon, we opened the art room for some media exploration. My favorite project--mandalas- made a return! And I was even more thrilled to help the patients use my favor medium: watercolor!

Like last time we did the mandalas, we were able to collect Likert scale data from the patients before and after they created their beautiful pieces of art. Eight patients, Ms. Endreson, Cassie, and I sat in a circle around the art tables and worked for about 20 minutes on these wonderful pieces:

Oil pastel was also an option for the patients, and this guy certainly liked that medium better.

Same artist as above image

"A Clock with No Hands"
This patient sat next to me and was very frustrated, claiming that she didn't know what she was doing the whole time. But  I think she was pleased to see a finished product. She was very careful about the red color and became quite focused at times. 

I can't blame this patient for seeing a circle as a face. He proudly called this a self portrait! 

This one is one of my personal favorites for some reason. It just has a lot of energy that I like. The artist who created this came in for a few minutes, threw down some paint, and left right away. 

"The black represents my depression," said the artist who created this piece

Here is an example of a patient who has an art background and does art outside of Bridges. She wasn't completely satisfied with this piece because she doesn't like watercolor, but at least she tried!

Out of all eight patients, four of them increased their Likert scale numbers, meaning they became more relaxed during the activity. The other four--including the artists who created the red clock and the desert scene-- decreased their scores and said they felt a little bit more anxious. 

After that enjoyable mandate activity (well, it was enjoyable for some at least), Ms. Endreson joined me and my mother for a farewell dinner in Tucson that night. We went to this adorable little restaurant called Agustin Kitchen. Why am I telling you about this? Well...the food was delicious and if you're ever in Tucson I highly recommend Agustin, but I'm also telling you because the food was beautiful! I almost lost it when Ms. Endreson's gnocchi dish came out of the kitchen in a beautiful mandala design (also, please enjoy a lovely image of me and Ms. Endreson. You haven't seen a picture of her yet huh? Well, better late than never): 

Friday was just as perfect as Thursday. Ms. Endreson and I sat down one last time with a patient to play the Value Game. And I have to say--not just because it was the last value game--it was the absolute best value game yet. The patient we sat with had an art background and was higher functioning so she had no problems following directions. We can caller her Tammie for now (not her actual name). 

Tammy came into Ms. Endreson's office frustrated and tired. A particular patient in the ward was being very loud and keeping Tammie up at night and for a while, it seemed like that was the only thing we were going to hear about from her, but as we diverted her focus to the value cards, she began to focus more on herself. 

One of the reasons I loved this value game so much was how Tammie went about organizing her card choices. As she selected the image cards that were important to her and not important to her, she strategically placed them out on the table in front of her in a way that was meaningful to her. Things that were more important sat higher up on the table (further from her) and things that had connections were grouped together. 

Another reason why I loved this final value game was Tammie's own remarks. When we handed her the value cards with only words on them, she (like all of the other patients) took much longer to organize them. As she flipped thought the cards, she continually asked: "Can we just go back to pictures please?" When I asked her what the different was between the two sets of cards was she responded: "Pictures connect to my soul and bring the feelings up...with words, they're just words and I see them and think 'oh gosh...' " 

Finally, the last reason I loved this value game session so much was the end result. As Tammie came to the end of her word selections we laid out her images and saw if any corresponded. Tammie made 5 matches! Yes, this might just mean that our brains work similarly and she saw the same values in the images as I did, but I loved that she was able to see how put together her choices were. Here are Tammie's final choices: 

As Friday came to a close, the reality began to dawn on me that I was going to walk through the sliding doors of St. Mary's hospital for the last time. I was sad but also felt rather accomplished. My mind thought back to the morning's art activity. I participated with the patients in an activity geared toward problem solving. Each patient was supposed to fill in a card with the words "I have a problem with..." on it. Then the cards would be shuffled, each patient would be presented with someone else's problem, and they would have to draw a solution to that problem. 

My card read: "I have a problem with....saying goodbye to people. It's never fun." 

Marcus (again not a real name) was the patient who had to solve my problem and draw the solution. He has paranoid schizophrenia, but loves to create art and some of his pieces are my absolute favorites. Here is what he came up with: 

When I asked Marcus what the writing said, he explained to me it read: "Party but promise to always remember." 

I absolutely loved his solution to my problem. It was the perfect combination of lighthearted and meaningful, which is exactly why I used it as the title of this blog post. This is my last post about my time at Bridges (I will definitely have a real concluding post with a link to my presentation and other concluding findings) but I don't want it to be a sad post. Like Marcus said, we have to party but promise to remember. I hope you all can celebrate this last blog post along with me but also not forget some of the things I wrote over the past ten weeks. I know I certainly won't! 

Thank you all so much, 

Tia :)