TROLS

 Hey Everyone!! Sorry, it's been crazy! I have been so busy. I just wanted to be a little honest about what has been taking up my time. I had a baby near the end of 2024. She has spina bifida. And I have been in the trenches of doctor appointments, calls to insurance, settling bills, and applying for various disability assistance.  Through my education, I kind of already knew a little about spina bifida. When I learned about my baby's diagnosis while still in the womb, I started looking up wheelchair sports. To my dismay, there are not a lot of adaptive recreation options near me. I live in the east valley of Arizona. And most of the recreation options are in actual Phoenix, which is 30-45 minutes away from where I live. And I already make several trips to Phoenix Children's Hospital out that way, so spending more time driving sounds not fun. In my head, I made such great plans to start wheelchair and adaptive sports options for physical disabilities, 'cause again, I am...

 Hey everyone! That was a longer break than anticipated. Life got crazy real fast. And it just keeps moving. I hope you all had a good holiday season, and welcome to the new year! I'm excited to see where things go this year. As a sort of reflection, I wanted to share my top 5 activities that have led to extremely therapeutic discussions and personal breakthroughs. Cami's Top 5 Therapeutic Activities 1. Skiing I already shared one of my best experiences with skiing in my previous blog post , so I probably won't share much about this activity. However, I have found that most of the best therapeutic work that I have been part of has taken place over the course of months to years. Having consistent, regular meetings with patients/clients creates a better therapeutic environment because you establish rapport, and you don't have to reintroduce yourself to anyone. You can build on what was established in previous sessions. And, as you repeat the skills that you are trying to ...

I'm not a big fan of the cold, but I do love to ski. Skiing has been one of my favorite activities for recreation therapy because the clients that I have worked with have learned so much. They learn a new recreation skill. They learn resiliency skills. They learn how to set small goals for themselves. They learn how to read mountain maps. Just lots of skills learned. I learned how to ski for my Therapeutic Recreation internship at the end of my undergraduate degree. I literally learned in just one day of training that all staff had to complete to be signed off by the company as able to ski while staffing the boys.  Cami and Brother on Ski Lift I was interning at an all boys Residential Treatment Center (RTC) for adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). My internship included skiing and teaching boys how to ski. We had separated the boys into three groups, which later became four groups: never skied (later separated into two beginner groups), beginner/intermediate, and exper...