Ai Yi Yi

I have been working all morning (yikes, it's almost 2:00p)-- scratch that, all day-- on a screening form that I can use on my Guatemala trip. I won't bore you with the details, but it needs to be very complete, yet very brief. Easy to use, easy to translate. I want it to look really professional, so I can impress everyone at our team meeting tonight, but I didn't actually start on it until today. Hmmmm. Why am I such a procrastinator? And now, since I'm sick of working on it, I'm blogging. I'm sure I'll get it done.... later.

I have another major problem. I'm the speech therapist on the team, but I cannot roll my "r", which is a major speech impediment in Spanish. I have been trying to practice and learn how to do it, and my kids keep laughing at me. I haven't been able to produce much of anything except a shower of spit all over my chin. I'm going to look like an idiot, trying to demonstrate proper phoneme placement while I'm spitting all over.

I'm starting to get overwhelmed about this adventure, partly by the packing that I need to do. Not because there's so much of it, but so little. We're extremely limited on space for the trip. I have to pack all of my personal items for 10 days in a carry-on size suitcase because my checked bags will consist of supplies for the team. I don't even think I can pack my 10 pairs of underwear and socks in a bag that size. The team leaders suggested that we just take 2-3 pairs of underthings, and plan on washing in the sink. I found some Tide packets at Target, so I guess I'll go with that. I also need to fit in all the literature/handouts that I've accumulated, and many copies of the new screening form I'm supposed to be working on at this moment.

But I have lots of room in my "bag of tricks". A therapist who I went to for advice on medical missions told me that I'd pull things out of my bag of tricks that I hadn't thought about since grad school. That's a pretty hefty assumption that I even have a bag of tricks- and I'm sure I don't know what's in it. I'm pretty confident about the pediatric group of disorders that I typically work with- dysphagia, language, cognition, resonance, etc. However, it's the adult and geriatric things I'm not feeling prepared for. I have very limited exposure to some of those disorders. On the missions she was a part of, she said that families would show up with their aphasic grandfathers, stuttering teenagers, and anyone they think the doctors can help. She filled up any available time she had treating these additional patients, beyond the cleft cases. Plus there are all the kids that don't qualify for surgery for various reasons that she recommended trying to work with. She takes a lot of gum with her, and teaches them to fill in their cleft with chewed gum if they have to say something important. Blog readers, feel free to inform me on any other tricks I can put into my bag.

Here's a sneak peek at a couple of cases we're going to see. You can see why cleft lip is sometimes referred to as "wide smiles". Much nicer than the offensive, yet somehow traditional "hare lip."

I'm hoping to get lots of questions answered at the meeting tonight, like Will their be room on the way home for souvenirs? I'm just kidding, I'm sure I'll get lots of good info. I just hope they're impressed by my half-a**eed screening form!