Thursday, April 17, 2008

I am in a PMS-ing mood now so allow me to rant but I dun think you can get through the rant can you.

term holidays are on! BUT, sudden appearance of extra patient needing orthotics destroyed my crabbing/mahjong plans. I thought I was almost ready to go for a break since I just need to do touch ups for one of the orthotic dispense I have right after term break. But this boy popped in on paeds clinic, needing orthotics for his functional flat feet. I wasn't even his attending podiatrist initially, partnered in when my classmate was confused with what she was doing, and tadahhh one more pair of orthotics to do! I was praying and praying I wun get another patient.

its not easy, because after u obtain a cast of the patient's feet, you have to go through the prescription to see what device u want to make, and then, pour plaster into the cast of ur patient's feet. After that you do 3 major adjustments, the forefoot post, the medial expansion and lateral expansion with ur positive cast. and then you might have some other fanciful plasterwork to do, for example a medial skive which is a bitch. and then u take a nice piece of polypropene plastic and heat it up, press it into the shape of the positive cast. and then u take the pressed polyprop out, you grind it to the shape you want and to the thickness you want, you have to flatten the forefoot and the heel by grinding it, making sure its sitting flat to the ground. THEN you heat up some EVA and you stick it to the heel and you grind it to make sure its flat to the ground again and then you put in a scarf plate to the heel. and then you put in the top cover using contact adhesives and some multiform.

sounds complicated. its even more complicated when you do it. and because I am still a baby in doing this, everytime i go thru a step I make sure i check with my teacher that it is ok before i proceed on. AND NOW, because I am going for a charity run up snowtown 700km away from adelaide next wednesday, the only day my tutor will be in, and I have to dispense the following week, basically I AM SCREWED. because i need him to check my cast before I do any pressing plastic. and i tried doing my medial skive today without knowing how it looks like. I was just following the written instructions on the handbook step by step, as thought like I am cooking a dish called Willywonka scrumptious beef from a recipe without know how it looks like or smells like or taste like.

and my thumbs cramped up (BOTH) because i was holding the 2.5kg positive cast in my hand for 2 hours while doing my expansions. and not being good in DnT or artncraft is taking its toll on me. and no patience. and i got so much contact adhesives on my fingers i had to dip my whole hand in turpentine. the skin on my hands now still has some stubborn glue bits.

and I had to redo my top cover 10 times today because that wretched heel cup is too deep for me to stick in the cover without causing any air bubbles. i suck at it dont i.

and I have two presentations due after the break and I am going to mt gambier for my rural attachment for 2 weeks, on the same week I am dispensing my orthotics. And both of my patients are coming in at the same time on the same day to collect their orthotics and I am supposed to review them and how the hell should i do it theres no second wenyan.

and the orthotic i have finished for the first patient really looks unpresentable, although I dun think theres anything wrong functionally.

orthotics are difficult, in the sense like mr fong's physics formula, CMC, can means can, cannot means cannot. Mere hardwork gets you no where. you can stay in the lab 24/7 but you get no where. you have to have the flare for it. WHICH I DON'T. I see people doing everything so easily and here i am struggling like mad. I can totally foresee my grades this semester. kaboom. gone.