Kids, Cats, and Collisions

14 June 2013

            We began the day by sitting in on a patient discussion. This is something Dr. Holtzhausen organizes every Friday to bring his professional staff of phisiotherapists together with the student phisiotherapists and biokineticists. The students present their cases that they have been working with, giving the background of the patients, their problems/diagnosis, and the methods of rehabilitation. Dr. Holtzhausen and his professionals then critique the students’ work, providing them with constructive criticism to become better at their professions. The main message that Dr. Holtzhausen wanted to get across during this discussion was that great medical professionals are not great because they know the most facts; rather, they are great because they know how to act in the best interests of their patients and can effectively communicate information between the other members of their team.   

            After the patient discussion, Jaclyn and I went with the kinder (children) kineticists to a nearby pre-school to play games with some adorable four year old girls. We had a variety of games to play to keep the kids interested. We set up relay races, played a version of duck-duck-goose, and had bean bag tosses. There was also a circle of square mats we set up and had the kids jump from mat to mat, alternating between landing on the mats with one foot and two feet. My favorite was something called “catch the puppy tail,” which consisted of hanging a flag off the back of your pants and running around taking everyone else’s flag. If your flag was taken then you had to sit down, so the last person with a flag was the champion. One girl, Madison, saw me as her only target and would run after my flag every round we played. Of course I let her get my flag, but we had a lot of fun chasing each other. The purpose of these games was to improve the children’s coordination, balance, and muscle mechanics. The games also encouraged kids to have healthy lifestyles by getting outside to play, rather than sitting inside staring at the TV or playing video games.

            That afternoon we went with our fisio friend, Marna, to the Cheetah Experience. For $10 you got to get up close and personal with full grown cheetahs, as well as some younger cheetahs and leopards. A part from the 22 cheetahs, there were also several male lions (including two white lions), leopards (including two black leopards), servals, and caracals. Our tour fell during feeding time so animals were very active, and we got to see those claws and teeth go to work!  One really cool moment occurred when we were checking out a 14 month-old male leopard named Zoro. I was crouched to get a good picture of his eyes and face as he was looking right at me. Just as I was about to take the picture, he started walking toward me and all I could say was, “Bring it in brother.” Zoro put his head right into my lap and we had us a little bonding moment.

            That night, we were helping with first aid on the sidelines of the university rugby game. We had two concussions, a sprained ankle, a sprained neck, and swollen eye brow. The guy with swollen eye brow looked like Rocky Balboa after 12 rounds with Apollo Creed. When he told me he had seen the movie I said, “Were going to have to cut you.” He just laughed and we bandaged him up so he could go play the second half.