Occupational therapy kicked my ass today. I knew my first day back would be rough but wow, that was super duper tough. He started with these tiny little beads I had to put onto a shape.

He let me do this with my hands. How nice of him. I had a star shape. This consumed the first 30 minutes of therapy. Trying to put those teeny tiny beads on the teeny tiny holes with my left hand. I was only able to complete half of the shape with the beads. Then I got to use the tweezer to take them off. Omg. I was exhausted.

Then I was given a peg board to take block in and out with this metal gripper thing. All left handed again. It isn’t in shapes but it is similar to this.

Looks simple, it would be but you take them out with the bottom part of a vice gripper where the tension can be adjusted to make it more difficult to squeeze. It is something like this picture but the bottom comes together and clamps around the blocks to grab them. Sure an easy task to a normal person but not someone with MS who has strength difficulty in her hands and is already fatigued from beads. BEADS!!!!

Then I got to do my favorite which is the therapeutic putty. Reminds me of silly putty and I find it fun. They hide 10 pennies you need to get out of a blob of putty. I usually take my time with this because I play. Yet he didn’t give me my normal green putty, he gave me blue putty. That’s the putty that is more dense, harder to manipulate and certainly harder to find the pennies. That wasn’t fun. I was sweating trying to pull this putty. It was so hard to mold and stretch.

OT may not be strenuous but you work. I had my Apple Watch set for other workout which goes by movement and heart rate. My movements tracked for 52 of my 90 minutes session and my heart rate at one point was 128. This was in OT I haven’t even started physical therapy yet. I am thrilled to be home now and on my chair. My whole body is fatigued. Geez.