how i spend my days...

So Clinicals are so fun and hard and exhausting and exciting.

I wish I could make a video of what I do all day. It would be like one of those Vimeo condensed videos and show the five hours in like 30 seconds. But I can't so I'll try to explain what I do in an interesting way.

So first is prep time and athletes come in to the Athletic training room before their practice to get treatment for sprains and strains and other such injuries. They usually get a moist heat pack or ultrasound therapy so that they are warmed up for their practice.

During practice I am either on the track field or in the AT room. Today I was on the field for most of the practice. I stand on one side while Lydia, the clinical instructor that I work with, is on the other side. On my side a girl went down and I didn't see it happen but immediately some of the other athletes called me over. I have never been so nervous about making a mistake in that 10 seconds that I ran over to the athlete in my whole life. While I ran to the injured athlete I called Lydia on the radio and she responded that she was on her way.

When I got to the athlete, I saw that she had landed on her arm wrong. I was so thankful that she was sitting up and that it wasn't a spinal injury. Luckily she happened to be someone that I had a class with last semester so I immediately just started talking to her and tried to calm her down until Lydia got there. There was no blood and no deformity. When Lydia got there I finally felt like I could calm down.

Oddly enough, this is the first of many experiences like this. Its weird to think that my knowledge of expertise will only be useful for when some kind of catastrophe occurs. Whether it be a hyperextended elbow or a concussion.

Anyway, the rest of practice went with little incident. I stretched out some hamstrings, learned about hip flexor injuries, and taped some fingers.

After practice, there's post. This is when athletes come to the AT room to get post practice treatment. This usually entails some kind of stretching and cold and interferential treatment. Interferential is so cool. This machine sends little shocks to the muscle in the body part that is being treated to speed up recovery. It feels so cool. When I tore my acl, this was my favorite thing about the experience. If I had to pick a favorite thing. This obviously tells you something about the experience of tearing your acl and having surgery. There are few favorite moments.

I realize I do a lot of stretching. And yes, for those of you wondering, it gets awkward at times. But I don't let the athlete see how awkward it makes me. Because then they make comments.

And then we clean up. We spray disinfectant on the tables and vacuum and fold towels and straighten up and other such things.

The track team is a good start for this kind of thing because there are times where there is so much going on and times when there is barely anything going on. Someone who has ADD should look into the occupation of an athletic trainer.

I hope I didn't bore you too much with the details. Its just something that I could probably talk for days about.