Since childhood, Lisa Tomczak has had a passion for horses. It's not surprising,
really, when you consider that her mother raised and bred Arabian horses.
By her teens, Tomczak was showing horses herself.
But Tomczak also had a burning desire to belong to one of the healing professions.
So when she attended a private college, she decided to major in recreation
therapy. After graduation, Tomczak started working in a clinic, but it wasn't
long before she realized that world wasn't for her.
By coincidence, Tomczak found her calling in the pages of a magazine. One
day, while she was casually browsing through a horse journal, she spied an
ad for a therapeutic riding instructor at the Cheff Therapeutic Riding Center
in Augusta, Michigan -- one of the largest centers of its kind in the United
States. Tomczak attended the training course that was advertised and ended
up working as one of their instructors. Now she can't wait to get to work
every day.
"It was perfect," Tomczak says. "It combined the things I really enjoy
-- working with disabled people and horses. It couldn't have been more perfect!"
Tomczak has worked at the center for three years and helped people from
the ages of three to 78 improve their sense of well-being.
"It's definitely a hands-on experience," she says. "You're working in a
very relaxed environment and the horses are so good that they take the pressure
off you as a therapist."
The horses help improve muscle tone, provide gentle stretching for the
users and increase their range of motion. But even when there is a limit to
the physical improvements, the emotional improvements can be remarkable.
"I worked with a teenage girl with cystic fibrosis who was on oxygen 24
hours a day," Tomczak says. "She didn't want to give up working with the horses.
She was determined to come here and get her riding time in."
Over time, the girl learned to walk, trot and even canter with the horse,
and eventually took part in some shows at the center. "She won a spirit award,"
Tomczak remembers. "It's these kids that really make the job worthwhile."
In the world of recreation therapists, Tomczak is a rare breed. Most therapists
end up working in clinic settings, like Sue Heideman and Norm MacInnes.
MacInnes, one of a handful of men in a women-dominated profession, has
returned to working as a hands-on therapist after spending years as a recreational
manager. He prefers the one-to-one contact with clients to the number crunching
and paper pushing of an administrator.
MacInnes finds the toughest part of the job is dealing with people who
have given up on life. Rather than work for their own independence, they rely
on the institution to do everything for them. Sometimes, that makes MacInnes
feel more like an entertainment director than a recreation therapist.
Another challenge is meeting the needs of quiet patients. "There are the
ones who bang on your door looking for things -- and you always hear them,"
MacInnes says. "But the difficult task is listening to the silent people,
some with severe cognitive impairments, who still have a lot of the same needs
but don't know how to articulate them."
But there are rewards, too -- like the time MacInnes encouraged a woman
in her 80s to learn about computers. "I got her into playing solitaire and
taught her how to start the computer up on her own," he says. "Within a few
days she was borrowing books on word processing programs and calling up friends
to chat about computers.
"I used this as a confidence builder. It's an excitement thing, and it
got her motivated and less focused on her physical disabilities."
Sometimes that's not as easy as it sounds, admits Heideman. Elderly men
in particular have a hard time replacing their former recreational passions
with new loves.
"Often, work determined who they were and they never developed any outside
interests," she says. "You see it a lot with men who have just retired. Leisure
time can be very stressful."
Heideman recalls working with a very good photographer who believed his
disability meant he could never take pictures again. "He kept saying, 'I don't
want to do anything. I'm useless.'"
Undaunted, Heideman was convinced she could rig something up with his camera
so the world would come alive for him once again.
"He was very, very reluctant," she remembers. After trying out a number
of options, she was able to adapt the camera with an extension and add a tripod.
"Now he could go out and take pictures in the park," she says. "It made him
feel so good and gave him so much more quality of life and self-esteem."
It's witnessing that renewed connection with the world that keeps many
recreation therapists hooked on their jobs. And that spark doesn't die when
patients breathe their last breath.
"I feel like I'm able to contribute," says MacInnes. "Mostly we're dealing
with people who have come to accept their place in the life cycle. You miss
them. But you also remember that you had a positive effect on their life.
And they continue to have a positive effect on yours."