Living Life to its Fullest

The motto of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is "living life to its fullest." As I type this incredibly and perhaps frustratingly slowly (since I'm typing this using only my left hand), I ponder what this motto means to me. A goal of OT is to help disabled people learn to live happy, functional lives. I am disabled on the left half of my body (left hemiplegia), a consequence of removal of part of my brain. My therapy consists primarily of hand and arm rehabilitation exercises, many of which can be seen on my youtube channel, in order to regain functional use of the hand. Other individuals may do cognitive exercises to help them learn or relearn to count money, follow instructions, handle social situations, or a litany of other possibilities (in my case I'm trying to relearn to physically handle money as opposed to cognitively... Though I could get along using only my right hand, Occupational Therapy will help me to be able to do this with both hands - insert dirty joke here). It is certainly a cognitive exercise to handle the daily frustrations caused by my disability (I like throwing things occasionally, it's quite therapeutic... thankfully my dog like to chase them).

Living life to its fullest isn't necessarily about "getting back to normal," as often this is not even possible, but it is about being happy with what you have and taking advantage of the opportunities to improve yourself. In my opinion, everyone could benefit from a little (or a lot) of OT.

Okay, I'll admit that I used my right hand to type part of this...