it may have been a coincidence;but it seemed like whenever the ots weren't sure what to do with me, they'd get me to do their (or someone else's) work for them.... there was the time they were having a lunchtime birthday party for one of the therapists, so for therapy they had me set the table for them, another time i spent the session using alcohol wipes to clean a whiteboard someone had written on with the wrong kind of marker... and then, knowing i was a computer addict they had me try to type and do things they needed, i made travel arrangements for one of their vacations, and twice typed up the saturday therapy schedule... on saturdays some still had individual therapies;but most of us had groups - pt/rec group was usually a bunch of us in the gym doing things like kicking balls from the wheelchairs, batting balloons with our hands, the weak one if possible, velcro darts while standing, tossing bean bags, etc - ot/rec was either a few of us leaving the hospital and wheeling down the street to a local restaurant, or making things in the workshop (one problem with having no sensation is that you don't know you've stuck your hand in a blob of tile grout, or glue or paint, until after you've spread it everywhere, believe me, i did all three.... ) or going downstairs to the kitchen and cooking together... once we made fruit salad, my job was picking the grapes off the bunch, after struggling to pull them off with my weak hand, i decided to stop being stubborn and instead just held the bunch with the weak hand and pulled them with the strong... another time we made smoothies, i cut the banana slices, another time we made nachos and salsa(i cut cheese), another time,stir-fry... the speech/rec group was same as during the week, board games... one sat, after id typed the schedule the day before, my roommate and i were out by the nurses station, waiting for our first group to gather, a rec therapist that didn't usually work in the unit asked at the desk for vicky, the pt assigned to the first group, the nurse said she didn't know where she was, the poor rec therapist looked lost, so i wheeled up and said "are you pat ?" when she answered yes, i proceeded to tell her "oh, your first groups in the gym at 9 with vicky, then at 11 you're with kathy down in the kitchen, and at 3 in the recroom with monica, you've got me,charlotte,brenda,june,and ray in all the groups. bill,terry and bob in the 9 am, bill and lisa in the 11" the poor woman, her mouth dropped open in shock and she said "how do you know all that?" i said "i typed the schedule" the look on her face said she doubted id typed it, and doubted even more that i remembered it... just then vicky showed up, i introduced her, and she said she was trying to find where kathy'd left the list of patients in the group, i said "if you really need it, i know her login and password for the computer;but i can tell you who's in it", vicky just laughed and trusted my memory, i don't think that poor rec therapist will ever recover, nor underestimate another brain damaged person