Personal Narrative: Healing And Physical Therapy

Ellyn Bache once said, “It’s normal to shy away from illness and death. It’s natural to gravitate toward laughter and life.” My dad has congestive heart failure, which is normally not considered a terminal disease, but his stage of failure is. He had his first heart attack when I was 8 years old. He was in and out of the hospital quite often. My dad had his second heart attack the summer after my 6th-grade year when I was twelve. He was in California, visiting his mother before she died. He had a heart attack and a stroke and was in the hospital for 52 days before we were able to go out to California and visit him. By the time we got there, almost all his bodily systems had shut down. He had frontal lobe brain damage, which made him unable to recognize my

When deciding on a career, I did not know straightaway I would pursue physical therapy. But I did know that I wanted to do something within the health science field, even at an early age. Every person in my family was involved in health care one way or another; some uncles are doctors, a few aunts are nurses, a couple cousins are surgeons, and my own mother is a physical therapist, so a career in healthcare was all I knew growing up. For a good majority of my life, I seriously thought about becoming a doctor, but that surely changed over time.

On August 5th, 2012 my dad had been rushed to the hospital. The night before

I feel a sense of calmness wash over me. My thoughts are peaceful and positive. I am confident and capable. I sleep a deep, healing sleep. I wake in the morning refreshed and renewed.

I believe in healing. I had always seen my pastor and my mom pray for people at church and talk about healing all the time. At church I always hear “prayer changes things” or “If you want to be healed you need you need to have faith” but I didn’t really listen because bad things happen all the time whether you have faith or not. I never really thought about people being healed it until a few weeks ago.

It hurt to walk as I stepped into physical therapy on that spring morning. I was coming into here for my second round of physical therap. I thought I had healed up the first thirteen weeks I had gone to physical therapy a year earlier, but three years later, I had still felt pain. I still can recite every detail on how I got here. I was at one of my gymnastics meets way back in 2012.

Looking back to the kickoff of my freshman year made me feel frangible. At this point, I had been a little more than halfway through my freshman and everything had transmuted once again. This time in a good way. I had just gotten out of my nerves cast about a month ago. It had been a fortnight since getting out of my cast for my broken ankle and but now I had just been able to commence utilizing my ambulating boot. The visual perception of my leg after being in a cast for 4 and half months Frightening. An aberrantly minuscule leg, can it even work where my poetic conceptions. My peregrination commenced at that moment. Two months until the commencement of club soccer season. For about a month my job in the school was to study and steadily start ambulating around the school.

As I was locking the apartment and leaving for school, my phone rang, "Can you come to the front door? I am not feeling okay", said my dad. I rushed to the front, helped him get out of the car, and carried his stuff. "What happened? How did your dialysis go? Why are you not feeling okay?" He was lacking so much energy that he couldn 't answer any of my questions and kept walking slowly while holding on to me. "Let me take a break," said my dad as he leaned towards the wall. As he closed his eyes he fainted and collapsed. I didn 't let him fall but slide down by the wall and reached for my phone and dialed 911. I sprinkled water on his face from his water bottle I was carrying as I stayed on the phone with the operator. Within few minutes they reached, got my dad up on the stretcher and took his vitals. I explained them as to what happened while getting on the ambulance with my dad. He was rushed to the nearest emergency. I stayed with him the entire time and informed my family as soon as possible. The medical team got him stabilized soon and explained that there was extra fluid taken out during dialysis than normal which caused him to lose all the energy and faint. Bringing my father to the hospital and calling for help on time shows my compassion towards my father 's sufferings and an ability to stay emotionally stable at such a stressful time. My father 's decline in health has motivated me to get into healthcare because I have always felt very limited in terms of helping

As a child, did you ever dream of becoming a wealthy doctor, or a nurse? Have you ever wanted to help someone in your family who struggles on a daily basis? Everyone will have that feeling at some point in their life. That is what physical therapy is composed of. It is, and was the start of the medical field, but can also be bypassed for a doctor or nurse practitioner. From repairing torn ligaments, to fixing broken bones, physical therapy is the most beneficial form of diagnostics. However, what you do to start a career in this field will determine the level of success. “The future depends on what you do today.” (Gandhi). Becoming a physical therapist requires a high level of education and skill to even enter the workforce, and there are many ways to begin your upcoming future in this career.

I was privileged to spend numerous hours walking alongside and observing a physical therapist at the Winona Health Center. The shadowing time spent with her was very rewarding and it validated that my decision to pursue a career in physical therapy was the right path for me to take. Professionalism is encompassed by a wide range of core values. During my time with Leah Winecke, she was able to articulate and demonstrate these values in various ways. She bestowed compassion on her patients by communicating effectively with them, both verbally and non-verbally, while also taking into consideration the individual differences was refreshing to observe. She showed excellence by taking the time to consistently update and educate her patients

In Physical therapy, the therapist's job is to give the patient exercises specifically designed for their injuries, and to help rehabilitate them. Physical therapy can only work if the patient puts in the time to follow the therapist’s instructions and is motivated to continue. Physical therapy is a treatment that almost everyone will have at one point in their life when health problems make it hard to move. This type of therapy is important because it helps relieve pain and improve physical function. The therapist’s key job is to work with the patient and form a treatment plan. This is where it is up to the patient to be motivated to follow the plan and better their body and life. Physical therapists work hard to help restore the patient’s

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is the ultimate question that you get asked throughout your life. Some people go throughout their entire life and never figure out what the answer to that question is. If you are like me, however, you stress until you figure out what you want to do with your life. The decision becomes a whole lot easier when you find something that you are truly passionate about. Sometimes it comes to you in the most unlikely of ways. My passion just so happens to be something that has a lot of significance to me and my family.

In the last two years, I almost lost my dad and almost flunked out of college. Having been taking care of him and watching him slowly decline to heart disease and other obesity related diseases, I finally checked him into the hospital. Going in for open heart surgery at age 72 and 428 pounds with type two diabetes, his chances of survival were slim. I will never forget his words to me before he went in for the surgery. "Don't worry about me, you haven't graduated from college, so I can't die yet". Even though he barely survived his surgery, the post complications are even more troublesome than before. With my dad receiving professional help, I am free to pursue my long desired education. I got myself out of academic dismissal and finally

10 years ago I was in a hospital surrounded by machines and family members. I was too young to realize what was really going on. When I was 1 ½ I was adopted by Brian and Lorrie. My dad was known for his caring heart and sometimes overworking. In 2007 my dad suffered a heart attack that was nearly fatal. I remember the doctors calling it the widowmaker. My dad was able to fight and now today lives with only ⅓ of his heart among many other conditions. Most people who have been through what my dad has been, would have given up, my dad keeps pushing. Brian is extraordinary for his compassion, strong soul and the way he is there for people when he needs it the most. I believe my dad is extraordinary and I want to tell you why, from his birth to

My father grew up in a poverty stricken neighborhood with a non-existent mother who laid in bed all day and a sister who was blind. His grandmother, a major influence in his life, made him see his potential to overcome the situation he was in. My father remembers going over to their house to “get away from it all.”, but on his birthday, she was admitted into the hospital and later pronounced dead.