Personal Narrative: My Experience With Occupational Therapy

During my early childhood I was lucky to have minor health issues; I was rarely ill, never suffered from anything detrimental to my health for long periods of time, and my family had no hereditary illnesses. During my freshman year of college, however, my cousin, who was four at the time and living with me, began sessions with an occupational therapist. At the start of therapy, she was unable to grasp a pencil properly. She was placed into an integrated class after the school deemed her to have a learning disability. Every day was frustrating for her to complete tasks that other classmates did with ease. After a few months with an occupational therapist, a drastic improvement with her writing and overall confidence was obvious. It was

Here I was allowed to meet a diversity of different patients and was able to speak and connect with them on a personal level. From being able to connect with the patients the sessions became more than just treatments but the patients felt like family and friends to me. I was given the capability of assisting the occupational therapist with creating lesson plans and conducting them to the patients myself to get a feel of what it feels like to work with adult patients one on one. The patients started to grow on me. There was one case with an elderly man who I became very attached to. He was receiving occupational therapy because he started losing energy in his hands and was very concerned because he was worried that he would not be able to take care of his very ill wife without a problem. Continuously seeing him receive treatments with joy, it was allowing him to be able to care for his wife. Knowing that I partook in that along with the occupational therapist was very rewarding. Seeing all the patients in general smile and see a big difference compared to when they first came in gave me great joy because being able to affect stranger’s life positively is not something everyone is capable

Seeing that there are countless cases of children who have problems developing properly or have early childhood disorders, I feel that with the skills and personality that I have and the skills that I learned from being exposed to occupational therapy it can be very rewarding for both me and the child along with their family. To know that I can impact a child from early developmental stages and because of me they can live a normal life is a blessing. From a young age I was constantly surrounded around young children and loved caring for them. Patients that you work with need to make sure that they feel safe with you and I can ensure patients that they are in the perfect hands. One thing that I love is that occupational therapy has diverse areas where you can work whether in a hospital, private clinic, home visits, and etc. I am an overachiever and I love seeing results from my work which is why I know this is the perfect career path for me. I love thinking outside of the box and I have a very caring and nurturing and motherly nature that any anyone would love to have me as their occupational