My Career

As promised, week one of this Gratitude Project is ready to go and on time, woohoo!  I thought it only fitting given that I recently re-retired (and it will stick this time!), that I begin with talking a bit about my career, since I am enormously grateful to have chosen this line of work.  Despite almost nobody knowing what it is and having to answer the question, "What is that?" about a kazillion times, particularly in the earlier days, I believe I made the career choice that suited my personality, interests and skills perfectly.  When I was in first year university taking general arts and science and planning to apply to the physiotherapy program for the next year, I had a housemate who was planning to apply to occupational therapy (Kathy, that's you!).  I hadn't heard of it and embarrassingly to my future self asked, "What's that?" After doing a bit of research (pre-Google, so it took some effort), my life's trajectory changed and my career began. 

I was an Occupational Therapist for 32 years and I truly enjoyed my work: helping folks to adapt to their changing health circumstances and achieve maximum independence and satisfaction in life (including comfort at end of life),  working with kids in schools who needed a different way of approaching tasks or a little boost in developing their skills, teaching and passing along my knowledge and experience and hopefully inspiring students at the College and University level, working with an amazing team of therapists, other allied health professionals and support staff, and learning - always learning - from everyone I encountered including colleagues, patients, families and community partners.  

Since this is a photography project as well as an exploration of thanksgiving in my life, I certainly set myself up to begin the hard way.  As anyone in health care knows, photos are absolutely forbidden.  How to photograph a review of 32 years of work in a field that demands confidentiality?  Here goes...

We begin at the beginning.  OT school at the University of Toronto during the time of my tenure there, was a four year undergraduate degree.  In addition to the classes (anatomy, neuroanatomy, physiology, neurophysiology, histology, embryology...I am blanking on any others), we had 1200 hours of placements, half in physical medicine and half in mental health.  There are so many career choices in OT!

Proof that I was cool at one time.

I drank the Kool-Aid and bought the leather jacket.  Remember this is the late eighties and all they made then was the football style jacket for football player-shaped people.  The shoulders are huge, the waist is tiny and it weighs about 15 pounds.  I tried taking a picture of me wearing it but it is impossible to take a selfie with a real camera, even with the tripod.  I forgot that I still had this jacket as it hangs in a basement closet but fortunately for this week's topic, I kept some mementos.

 Proof that I was properly educated.

Note the partially faded seal.  My diploma spent most of its life on a shelf with only the left side exposed to the light apparently. I never had an office and usually not even a wall, just Dilbert-style dividers.  When I moved to my home office, it didn't seem necessary to hang my diploma to prove my credentials to myself.

Proof that I was employed.

Most of my 32 years were spent doing home care.  I started my career with a hospital job in Timmins doing slow-stream rehab for one year.  I then moved back to the Sault and worked at the Plummer Hospital where I worked in inpatient mental health, psychogeriatrics, the workers evaluation centre and general inpatient services for about three years.  In 1994 I started at Home Health Care Algoma, where I stayed until I retired.  During that time, the name changed three times and it is currently in the process of changing again.  We went through Community Care Access Centre, Local Health Integration Network and Home and Community Care Support Services North East.  The new name is something like Ontario Health atHome.  Who are the geniuses who came up with a name eight words long and the other geniuses who don't know how to use spaces appropriately?  It was and always will be just plain Home Care to me.

Proof that I drove a lot.

And it's a good thing I enjoy driving!  Home Care has seen me through a Saturn Coupe, Jeep Cherokee, Mazda 5 and Honda CR-V, all with many many kilometers on them.

Proof that nothing stays the same.

Of course many things have changed many times over the years; colleagues, policies and procedures, the clientele, best practices and the list goes on. The final years of my career were different in a different way.  The Pandemic changed the way we had to work, initially trying to do the job over the phone (awful), then limited visits only when "necessary" (not great), then with maintaining distance (better but not easy) and with masks.  Also, we all got sent home to work and that has turned into a permanent situation.  I know that all of this was and at times still is necessary but it changed things for me.  I made the decision to retire in June 2020 and I retired in July 2021.  I returned to help out for 18 months but I am done now.  Let the young 'uns continue on.  

I'm forever grateful for my career but I'm moving on to new adventures.