my career

So when people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them that I am a Speech Therapist they

 often ask "can you help me speak clearly when I'm drunk" or "ohh, so you work with people who stutter?"  I usually laugh at the first question and respond to the second with "well, yes, some speech therapists specialize in working with people who stutter, but that isn't what I do" If they're still interested in what I do, I explain it a little further by telling them that I work primarily with adults in a hospital. Some people then figure that I work with people who have had strokes. And. . . this is true. But - in all honesty, we can see patients who by their diagnosis alone you would never guess that they would ever need a Speech Therapist. You see, a big part of what we do in the hospital setting is evaluate people's ability to swallow (insert off-color remarks here) People may have difficulty swallowing just like they would have trouble with walking, using their arms or talking. So, we see people who have had strokes, brain injuries, heart surgeries, brain tumors, cancers of the head, neck, throat, heart surgery, lung conditions, trauma, etc. So as you can imagine no 2 days are ever alike in the hospital and you meet many very interesting patients and families along the way. I'm sure more stories will come to mind as I continue on this blogging adventure but until then . . . here is the cover photo of a magazine article that myself and a co-worker were featured in :) 

- Kel