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Nurture Project 3

Now that the final stroke towards the end of semester is here, so is the journey of the plant which I took care of. To be honest, during this whole semester I was not able to properly create a good mindset on this project as no matter what was happening, it was just a bother to keep it alive and water it every day. It seemed repetitive, there was no feedback or anything, it was just there being alive and doing its thing. I am not able to feel anything for the plant even though I saw that mine withered while the plants of some of my classmates were still brimming with life. The plant just did not have an affect on my life as it never does help me nor does it comfort me at all, its just dead weight in my eyes.

             The whole semester of taking care of the plant made me realize that my first assumption of thinking that I was going to fail taking care of this plant turned out to be true. Though it was good at first and I was able to still take care of it during the first and second shifting, by the time it became third shifting the plant has died because it was undas break the week before and I did not water the plant at all as I still lived far away from the school. Throughout almost the entire span of the remaining third shifting not once did I bother anymore to look at or visit my plant as it has already died off and not worth paying attention to anymore.

             Though I was not able to take proper care of my plant, it was still thanks to it that I somehow managed to get a deeper or clearer understanding on my lessons this shifting about how OT reasoning should be aligned and how to achieve a goal but with various methods integrated in the plan just in case something goes wrong. It was also thanks to this project that I am able to experience the feeling of letting something under my hands die due to my lack of care for it. Though I do not grieve the death of the plant as it does not affect me at all and in any condition, it was thanks to its death that I now understand deeper the value of life that will be placed under my supervision which I cannot just toss aside and disregard. I have also learned that it does not take deep mercy and compassion to take care of the plant as all that was needed to do in order to take care of the plant and keep it alive was to waste approximately 1 or 2 minutes of my break just to water the plant to ensure that it does not die and immediately go back to what I was doing. Though I may not care for the plant personally, it still could’ve been alive if I just took some time to water and nothing else. This feeling of empathy and sense of direction of mine should be more enhanced and trained that in the future, when handling actual people who feel more than the plant itself and is more likely to be sensitive to every action and non-verbal act done while also moving the people towards the objective that the patient desires to achieve.

             Letting go of this plant at the end of this semester was did not pose any challenge to me as I was not able to create any deep relationship with it. Though I feel nothing towards the plant and its death brought no burning emotions within my heart, I still felt grateful that this project was able to teach me on how it is to actually take care of a life though insignificant is still a stepping stone towards what I will be working with in the future.

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Nurture Project (2nd Shifting)

During the second shifting, I rarely looked after my plant as I did not really care much about it and there was the issue of studying OT 1021 which is already burdening me so much. If it is up to me, I would rather just leave my plant alone and let it wither than to take even 10 seconds of my time just to go to it, water it then leave, this routine is almost useless to me. Comparing the status of my plant right now, I would say that it still looks the same and it did not grow nor did anything new happen to it. On the first shifting, I was still able to put time in and water the plant on a daily basis before going to classes, but now on the second shifting, I have not watered my plant as much since I now stay at the library in order to study more and more just to not fail OT 1021. Looking back on the first shifting, I have come to realize that even though I thought that this kind of activity is just trivial at the beginning and easy to do that I am able to do it consistently throughout the school year, it is just too inconvenient for me to keep going to the plant box before going upstairs to my classes for it is easier to just let it be and hope that it does not die.

When I compare my plant to the plants of my classmates, I would say that my plant looks awfully plain and does not contribute much to the beauty of the plant box of my section. It is there and only serves to fill the plant box with its additional number. Whilst it is just a regular plant, when I look onto the other plants I also realize that there are some that are not being watered as well which made some beauty of the plant wither off. The diligence of my block mates has also seemed to fade off as well due to the stresses of the college life and how we are able to keep track of our priorities in order to pass each subject. I feel very indifferent about the similarities about the differences of my plant compared to the plant of my peers. The first reason for this is because of the fact that even though the plants are there and each have their own differences in shape colour and size, it seems as though they are all insignificant and useless because they are such a pain in the schedules of those who have to take care of them. The second reason is that the plants themselves have not chosen their species and types so therefore each of them are off their own kind which have grown off the process of evolution thus making each plant have their own specialties which made them last for so long.  

Having learned and understand the state of our PWD brothers and sisters here in the Philippines made me a little bit aware of how they are being treated and why they are being treated as such. This knowledge makes me think deeply that if I were to be placed on a patient who has almost no reaction or maybe does not want to cooperate with me, will I just treat them like the plant and lose interest in them and during the course of my stay, nothing fruitful will happen?, or will I be there taking gentle, good, consistent care to the patient in order to bring out from the patient the best that they can do. It is scary to think that I will be the type of person who will abandon a patient who can see, hear and feel but cannot reply or react back to them. I can barely imagine what it would be like to be able to learn that the therapist or helper who is taking care of you will just up and leave because you do not have the capacity to respond even though they’ve been there for a long time already as if you are just wasted effort from them.

This nurture project though it could seem a little bit stressful and almost to the point useless as an activity overall, the kind of understanding I get from it is almost scary when related to real people and taking care of them. Just as the plant, there are those people who are paralyzed, not coherent, not stable, etc. which need the help of therapists in order to be able to live their lives naturally and happily. Yet when I come to think about it, just like this nurture project, if I one day tire of taking care of the patients who are dependent on me to have a happy healthy life with what they have, how much impact does it leave them with and how hopeless will they feel that a person who has professionalized in healthcare itself who seems to have an almost unending well of patience, give up on them. From this project, even though my perspective of taking care of the plant is still subject to change, I have come to learn more about the value of patience and care that must be shown to patients who are especially vulnerable, as they are very subject to criticism and when the person taking care of them even shows even just a little of bit of hesitation and unconcern feeling towards taking care of them, it already leaves such a huge impact in their daily life and how they view themselves as a person.

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Nurture Project

Aligaen Adrian T.

1OTA

            When I first heard that we needed to bring a plant to school, I was honestly confused as I did not know what this plant would be used for. As I do not own any plant life at my place, I went to the street of the Dangwa Flower Market near Laong Laan road. I was lost for a good 5 minutes in the place as I did not know what kind of plant I wanted to get at all so I just listened in to the first salesperson who called out to me and tried to sell me their goods. I was looking first at the bamboo plant as it looked small and easily manageable but then I saw the San Francisco plant and among the other plants that were being sold I thought that this was the simple looking plant yet it was beautiful in my eyes. I chose to go for this San Francisco plant and decided to call him Pablo Niro

During the early stages of taking care of Pablo Niro, I found it easy and not a hassle in my path as all I had to do was to visit him every morning when I go to school and just pour water over it then leave immediately as I did not care for him that deeply. It seemed like a side hobby that did not have that much of a point but for my grades in Understanding occupations, and when I learned that Pablo Niro did not have to necessarily have to be healthy in order to have a good score in the nurture project. After having this knowledge I neglected the state of my plant and did not care much for it as its meaning did not really mean much to me.

On the following week, as I was hanging out with my classmates, they decided to water their plants, so I just followed their lead and decided to water my plant as well. Upon checking the status of my plant, I have discovered that there was already a dried leaf on Pablo Niro’s body which made me feel sad for the plant I brought. This discover made me understand that in order to see the health of Pablo Niro improve and remain healthy, I must water him every day be it at dawn or dusk in order to have a plant that is healthy, growing, and most important of all, he will remain alive. As the days passed by that I have attended regular classes, I was able to see the improvement of Pablo Niro’s dry soil and as it turns out to be, I ended up being happier than I expected to be just because of a mere plant which I did not hold any value to.

 It was the essence of watering him every day and taking care of him that did I learn that it is not about what is beautiful at the start but the effort that I placed into that made this entire project enjoyable to me. It was not about the kind of plant it was when I bought it nor was it the condition I was given with, it was all about how I decided to proceed with the given plant that dictates whether the plant will flourish or die. I have realized that I should not depend on other people to take care of the plant for me because it removes the essence of the plant being mine and it would seem as it instead belonged to another person.

            I feel like this is relevant to my course because just like the plant we may be given patients that are very different from each other and we must take care of them no matter what. As an occupational therapist, I should not just pass down the chore of taking care of the patient to another colleague for the reason that it was me who the patient was assigned to and not them. I could almost feel the neglecting aura that I may accidentally give off if I just opted to pass the patient to another therapist because of the reason that I did not care enough for them at all.

            The joy of seeing and watching the patient overcome their difficulties in life is just the same as that of the plant. Although at I may not enjoy taking care of the patient at first because of the stranger relationship between us, I feel that if I dedicate my time to understand and learn the patient properly and see him improve with the weeks that we are going to be together, it will leave a deep impact within me as this will be the proof that I am successful as an OT practitioner and that the patient will no longer be looked down upon and instead they will have an increased independency in their life.

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