Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My name is Joseph Fontelara, and I'm a sushi chef in downtown Chicago. Sushi is the perfect
combination of obsessive, crazy detail and repetitive work that I like, and the fluidity
of working in a hot kitchen. The injury, doing some butchery a very heavy and sharp cleaver
that hacked through all of the tendons on this side of my hand.
When Joe first came in, he was in pretty bad shape. He had a large incision, he had a lot
of swelling, a lot of pain. He had a small tear in his artery.
When I first met Karen, I was actually really optimistic. We clicked almost instantly, personality
wise. I was super excited to find out, when Karen was telling me that all she worked with
was hands for most of her career. She was a specialist.
Joe's rehab followed very specific protocol. The first few weeks, all you do is passive
range of motion and a lot of scar massage. Once you get that range of motion back, then
you really have to focus on fine motor coordination, and incorporating gentle strengthening up
until the point where they can go back to their daily activities.
Everyday she would just encourage me, saying, "Only a little bit left, we can do it, by
the time we're done working we'll have everything back."
With Joe's job specific activities, we really tried to incorporate activities that were
things he would have to do. He does work with rice, so what activities can we mimic that
would be the same type of rolling activity, coordination activity. Can we incorporate
certain tools into our therapy that would mimic the same. Joe's final exam was to make
us spring rolls, which was a fabulous final exam. Overall, Joe did absolutely phenomenal.
He was really goal oriented, he was really focused, he was a great patient.
I would absolutely recommend anybody to go to ATI.