Drifts

During the three months in Fergus Falls I'm living a mile out of town with some friends of the family. Their home is on the top of a hill with a great view. We can sit at the dining room window and watch the ice fishing across the lake. If you've spent any time on the prairie you know that most homes have trees on at least the north and west side to block the wind. This home has only a few trees so the wind blows the snow around the house and dumps it right on the driveway. I received a call on Tues evening that I should park at the neighbors (completely surrounded by trees so no drifting occurs). As I walked up the driveway, the drifts weren't bad but the next morning I was very glad I had parked at the neighbors. There was no way I could have gotten my car out. By Friday when the winds stopped blowing the drifts were as high as the snow fence.

The highlight of the week was on Wednesday. I arrived at work to learn that two of the 10 OTs had called in sick and another was off. I was sent up to help one of the rehab patients with their shower and dressing while schedules were reshuffled. When I was finished, I was handed an almost full  schedule of patients to treat. "Are you comfortable with this? Here's a beeper if you have any questions or need help." OK, here we go. If I got my feet wet last week, this was jumping in the deep end. A few times an OT popped in on a treatment session to help out a bit but somehow I survived and so did the patients. I left work that day thinking that was the most fun I'd had since starting this program. We were short three OTs on Thursday as well but that was for weather related reasons and the scheduling had been done accordingly so it wasn't as crazy, at least not for me.