We finally saw the sun after two weeks of clouds and fog. It even warmed up to 40 degrees! Work is finally starting to make sense. I had a breaking point on Tuesday when I had several grouchy patients tell me I didn't understand what it was like to be an old person. I even had one lady say "you are the worst one" and another lady said "oh no, not you again". The only kids who ever gave me a hard time about treating them were my kids with Autism. Jonathan also got the stomach bug and was out of work one day. By the end of the week though the same ladies came around and became quit pleasant. On Thursday I was given an unexpected out patient to evaluate and treat. It was a lady with bilateral elbow fractures...not sure what part of I used to be a school therapist they didn't understand. I had to use a goniometer to measure elbow flexion and extension which I hadn't done since graduate school. Lets just say this will be a learning process for me! We finished out the week by throwing a "party" for my bilateral lower extremity amputee patient who is discharging. He had told me he was done with therapy on Thursday when he was given the notice that he would be able to go back home. Since I knew we would still have to treat him on Friday I got him to agree to coming to the therapy gym first thing in the morning for a going away 'party' and 'surprises'. I got him to 'show me how' to make an egg white sandwich in our therapy kitchen. This is what he had said he makes for breakfast every morning at home. He had told me he liked to shoot guns so I had our director bring in her kids nerf gun and we set up an obstacle course for him to move his electric chair though and shoot at targets. I'd say it was a success.
This weekend we ventured into Washington State to go snow shoeing. We are only about 45 minutes from the border. We went through Washington Wine country on the way out. Our views through the fog consisted of vineyards, cows, and green mountains. When we got up to the top of the mountain the sun came out. We went up to White Pass Washington where there is a ski and Nordic center.
We did a hike around a frozen lake and even walked on the Pacific Coast Trail which is similar to the eastern Appalachian Trail.
Here is the lake in the summer:
And here is the lake we saw:
I thought I'd give a tutorial on how to dress for winter weather as I have learned over the years. Coming from the coast of NC I never really had to dress for cold and snow.
The trick is to layer. For the undermost layer a long sleeve polyester blend shirt and leggins will do. I got my shirt years ago on Sierra Trading post which is an online outdoors store. For socks you really want to wear some smart wool to keep your feet warm and dry. I choose to wear REI smart wool knee socks. On top I have two additional layers. One is a fleece pullover from Old Navy and then a windproof rain jacket. Mine is a Marmot Jacket. My show pants came from Target in the kids section at the end of last session. I paid $14 for them. Since I'm petite sometimes I can get away with kids gear and clothes which makes things cheaper. I did see some snow pants at Walmart for $40. I recently invested in some snow boots at the Merrell outlet in Park City, Utah for $35. Lastly you need a good pair of water resistant gloves and a hat. My hat is knit with a fleece liner. I brought along a knit scarf but quickly sheded that layer. Your temperature constantly changes when snow shoeing. When hiking more vigorous sections your body temperature increases but when you stop for breaks it quickly cools off. Its important to ventilate as much as possible when you heat up. My jacket has zippers under the arms to allow increased circulation. At time I even took off my gloves when hiking!
To get an insight as to how much snow was on the ground we took a picture of the picnic area which was basically covered. Jonathan pretended to warm his hands by the fire pit.
The sights of fur trees covered in snow was beautiful and they smelled awesome too!
On the way up/down the mountain we saw crossing signs for Rams but never thought we'd actually see some but then sure enough one was just up the mountain past the sign!
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