3. Arranging Stuff

I have been doing some tests with the psychologist. Safe to say, everything is coming up fine. They understandably want to check these things after a brain injury. I've done word recognition tests, memory tests, and tests where I have to arrange stuff. Today I did that classic psychology test where you have to identify the black blob. A few guesses later, and to my second-later mortification, I blurted out, "Dildo!" It was a gun. Thank goodness he laughed. We were both trying to work out some of them as they are purposefully vague (the 'cow' was a 'rhino' obviously). Kangaroo or wallaby, we will never know. I learnt to just say what the people-that-make-these-things would want me to say, and to stop trying to be too clever when I declared, "Crocodile- No, No! It's a platypus! A platypus!" The answer they were looking for was crocodile.

We also had another family meeting with the physiotherapist, occupational therapist, and psychologist. The psychologist and I got into a debate about the psychology of multi-tasking. I know it's a bit rich for someone who's never studied psychology to take on a psychologist but I tried. I'm very trying, me. Like at a parent's evening, the purpose was to feed back to my parents what the team had been doing with me and to arrange stuff for the future.

The next morning my house was assessed for staying over night. Our assessors clearly had way more long-term community experience than my last team, who had just looked at the basics like toileting for the present. These guys were thinking much more long-term, to when I can walk about the house. They recommended my parents buy a chair with arms so I can sit in a proper chair at mealtimes, rather than just hunch-across in my wheelchair. Mum went and fetched the only chair with arms in the house, which happened to be my great-grandfather's old plush leather desk chair. It looked ridiculously fancy and far too self-important to sit in at the head of the table. It was too low anyway. Then, to my horror, she brought in my old highchair, a Tripp Trapp that is height-ajustible. I was delighted it didn't have arms. I feel infantilised enough, thank you. The team advised a couple of other things that would help me, and then I should be good to stay the night next weekend. Apparently, I now have a social worker called James who's job it is to arrange stuff.

Speaking of arranging stuff, I was reading in my Bible and came across an amazing story I've never heard preached on, where Jesus just heals someone without then seemingly even asking. In Luke 13:10, Jesus calls a woman forward who has been suffering for 18 years and frees her from her trouble, just like that. I've read where someone has to touch him, where he's asked what they would like him to do when their blindness is clear, where people call out to him, but never him calling out to them. This act of compassion becomes over-shadowed by quibbling over healing on the Sabbath and it's noteworthy-ness is overlooked. Jesus is not some distant authority to whom we have to beg for attention. He sees us, and knows exactly what he's doing. Talk about arranging stuff.

Some banana bread I made a with the OT.