I had the absolute pleasure of lunching at the clinic last week. I don’t know about you, but as much as I want to connect with folks and be social, my inner introvert keeps telling me, “There’s always next week. This week feels too busy.” In any case, we put it on the calendar, and let me tell you, I’m so glad I visited.
It was my first opportunity to meet Emily and Mags in real life. I had the pleasure of meeting Carolyn in June at our end-of-the-school-year celebration at Amaterra Winery. I also got to meet Courtney, who is working with Lauren at the front desk a couple of days a week.
If you are a clinic regular, it’s probably no surprise that this is a lively, smart, and fun group of people. Sometimes when you meet folks for the first time, it’s awkward and stilted. At this lunch, the conversation was non-stop hilarious.
Do you think back about the before pandemic times? This lunch visit reminded me of my days when I worked daily in the clinic alongside Lauren, and the bittersweet feeling of our lunch going too quickly. Of course, I realize that you’re there to work at work, but so often, when the lunch vibe was super-fun, there was that beat when we would need to switch back to work mode. I sometimes wonder if, from a client’s perspective, it might seem like we are always in playful mode. That’s one of the benefits of play-based therapy. As an observer of the clinicians, I always enjoyed watching them bring their fun-loving selves to their therapy. I loved the opportunities I got to join in conversations when a client was working on a survey, scavenger hunt, or just practicing questions and comments.
If there was one tiny downside to visiting in person, it was the reminder that the pandemic keeps evolving and showing up. As much as we’d all like to move on and be fully normal again, that’s just not possible. Jenny notified me the day after my visit that I’d had contact with someone who had just tested positive for Covid. Thankfully now we have tests, protocols for isolation and quarantines, and access to good masks and medications for lessening the effects of the Covid. For me, this was a good reminder that we all need to do what we can to keep Covid at bay.
What we do to prevent the spread of Covid:
- As a health care facility, we continue to wear high-quality, good-fitting masks in our clinic (there are instances where clinicians ask clients to remove masks for feeding and articulation therapy)
- We do need to remove our masks at lunchtime but put them back on after we finish eating. We space out when unmasked or eat outside
- Please stay home if you or your child has any symptoms of fever, cold, cough, flu, or rash
- It’s always safest to err on the side of caution, and if all parties are feeling well to participate in therapy, we can set up a teletherapy session instead of an in-person session.
Please know that we are doing the same to keep you and your family safe and well, and we hope you come to play with us soon!
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