cutest patient award

Right now I'm working in neuro physical therapy, seeing about 50% adults, 50% pediatrics. I love it. People might actually get tired of hearing about how much I love what I am doing right now. I have the best teachers who are so good at what they do and are great mentors. And I have the most wonderful patients.

One of my patients is a five year old boy with leukemia who then developed a spinal cord injury, and is now paralyzed from the legs down.

He is probably the cutest kid you will ever meet. Most of his words start with an "n", so that "I need my walker" becomes "Ni need ni nalker." Adorable. He has such a positive outlook and is so happy. When I first met him in therapy, we would get him out of his wheelchair into a standing frame and drive him around building and spin circles outside. Now, we're putting him in his "armor" or reciprocating gait orthosis and teaching him how to walk again. It is thrilling and fulfilling.

As we got him standing by himself for the first time, he watched himself in the mirror, practically holding his breath with the biggest grin on his face. When he finally lost his balance he burst into giggles, saying, "I was trying to hold in my laughter!!" 

When I compare him to some adults who lose their ability to walk, his cheerful attitude certainly puts a different spin on "You must must become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven" Bible verse. For him, it is just another exciting adventure.

One day I was sitting at the edge of the mat with my arm around him so he didn't tip over, and my clinical instructor sat on the other side of him. All of a sudden, he looked to his mom with the most horrified look on his face. He had just realized he was sitting in between two girls. He states that he has two girlfriends. When he discovers that my clinical instructor is engaged, he says, "What?! No! I'm gonna find him and knock him over and say, 'You can't take my girl!'" 

Two days later as we walked down the hall together, my five year old's mother reminded him of a conversation they had had before coming to therapy... "Now you remember what we talked about earlier, right? That it's ok to have girls who are your friends, but you can't have girlfriends. Because (my clinical instructor) is old enough to be your mom and she's already taken. And remember, you said you were okay with that?" My patient replied ever so cutely, "No, I understand it, but I'm not okay with it."

This kid is maybe my favorite. When he's not threatening to run me over and turn me into a pancake, he's coming to find me in another gym to shoot me down with the button on his Buzz Lightyear jacket.