STUDENT NAIATU

I feel lucky for having chosen an assignment at a school. I know that when I can't seem to get things working or moving with staff members at school, I can always cheat my way out of doing "real" work by treating students. I have every intention of leaving a lasting impression and changing habits of the school that will benefit them in the long run, but when you're one of the few motivated people in the school, it becomes easy to lose sight of what you're trying to acheive.

The wrong thing to do is to become the "replacement" Physiotherapist and do therapy with the children all day long. The right thing to do is to set up programs and protocols to ensure that everyone else knows how to deliver the necessary therapy so that once I depart, I won't leave any gaping holes and the students will benefit in the long run.

I'm going to start telling a few stories about particular students at school. Their real names won't be used and their disabilities will not be overly descriptive. Please bear with me as I feel that protection of their identity is paramount.

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Student "Naiatu" is a 15 year old boy with hemiplegia. This means that half of his body is weak. He can walk and talk and despite his official "diagnosis", he is quite agile. He loves to play rugby, just like every other young boy in the school, and acquires many cuts and bruises from playing too much of the aforementioned sport.

Having a hemiplegic arm, it makes it difficult to use this arm in everyday tasks. For example, opening jars, sharpening his pencil, stabilising the paper that he is writing on becomes a much more difficult event. He still copes by compensating with his good arm. He does have some movement in his affected arm and hand, but prefers to hide it under his jacket sleeve. He likes to keep it under his jacket sleeve where it is tucked away from the world, out of his way and would probably serve him better if it wasn't even there at all (that's what he thinks, anyway). I have been trying to tell him that the more he uses it, the more useful it will become. I feel like I've busted a gut to tell him that it would be less of an annoyance if he actually tried to use it.

Recently, I started telling him off that he needed to keep his sleeve up to expose his hemiplegic hand. On several occasions, I grabbed him to prevent him from running away and rolled up his sleeve. He would then walk away from me and hastily unroll his sleeve again over his hemiplegic hand. I became quite persistent with my sleeve rolling and every day became a battle between myself and Naiatu to keep his sleeve rolled up.

One day, I was sitting in the therapy room when he ran in and showed me a nasty looking scab with exposed raw skin underneath. He asked me if I had a bandaid or something to wrap it up. It actually wasn't that bad and didn't really need a bandaid, but nonetheless, I searched high and low in my cupboard. As I actually don't know where anything is, I turned him away and told him that I might try and find one at home for him. He walked out feeling incredibly disappointed that I didn't have a bandaid, and before he exited the room, I grabbed him and rolled up his sleeve. It was at this point that it dawned on me the ultimate prize that would motivate him to keep his sleeve up.

"Naiatu, if you keep your sleeve rolled up for the rest of today, I'll bring a bandaid for you tomorrow"

His face lit up and for the first time, he didn't try to pull his sleeve back down over his hand as he walked away from me. The rest of the morning, he spent every opportunity to show me that he had his sleeve rolled up. Then, later in the afternoon, he was walking past and his sleeve had fallen back over his hand. He tried rolling up his sleeve, but it was too late. He had seen that I had caught him with his sleeve down. In an act of desperation he finally rolled it up again and pleaded with me:

"Please, please, I pull it up again. You see? See my hand, I show you! Please, please, you bring bandaid for me tomorrow?"

To which I responded:

"I'm sorry Naiatu, but unless you keep your sleeve up for ANOTHER day, I might think about bringing in a bandaid for you."

To which his response was: "Please, please! When I wear bandaid, I play rugby better!" I thought to myself: "just like bandaids cure headaches and tummyaches if you stick them on your head and stomach respectively."

The next day, Naiatu made even more of an effort to keep his hand exposed. I kept hearing my name being called out:

"Amanda! Amanda! Look! Look! You see my hand?!"

And when I walked past his classroom, he made sure that I'd seen him:

"Amanda! Amanda!" Naiatu would yell at me from the middle of his classroom, holding up his hand.

At 3pm, he ran up to me with his hand still exposed from his rolled up sleeve.

"So you bring me something tomorrow? All day, I show you my hand, it has no sleeve!"

But I am horrible and mean. I am a Physio-terrorist. I made him wait until 3pm the next day. I had a bandaid and a lollypop ready to give him at the end of the day, but would withold it if I saw his sleeve rolled down past his hand. Even when it was hot, he kept his jacket on just so he could show me that his jacket was rolled up. I'm not sure if I'm breaching child protection laws by bribing him with a bandaid, but I'm also pretty sure that he's never used his hemiplegic hand as much as he had done by lifting it up to show it to me in the past 3 days.

It was at 3pm today, when the final bell had rung to signify the end of another week that he ran up to me agian. He looked at me expectantly and finally, I handed over a bandaid and a lollypop. And with a quickly spoken: "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!", he wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a very grateful hug.

I hope that it's the last time that I have to tell him to keep his sleeve rolled up. If it is, we're one step closer to disuse atrophy of hemiplegic muscles...