Fancy coats

"Wow, look at all of those people in their fancy white coats."

That's what I used to think when I saw the pharmacists and doctors around the hospital.

Then I became one of those people.

At first I felt like a stud. In putting on my white coat, there was an added pep to my step and the world was mine for the taking. I carried papers that looked important and a brand spankin' new green gel pen.

As time passed, my white coat fantasy world started crumbling. It was only a matter of time. I'm the girl who can't walk and chew gum at the same time and now I was supposed to maintain this level of super confidence at all times. Something bad/embarrassing was bound to happen.

Yesterday I strolled into work saying hello to the Saturday morning crew while wearing the magical coat that was supposed to protect me from being a moron. It wasn't until after I had been at work for 20 minutes that I realized my fly was open. Wide open. It wasn't remotely conceivable that you could ignore it if you were paying the least bit of attention. *Sigh*

It's hard to convince a patient that you are truly capable of being in charge of their medication when you can't remember to zip up your pants.

Maybe Operation Stretchy Pants isn't such a bad idea after all. At least I wouldn't have to worry about zippers...

Sea of red

No, not this sea of red (though I will be seeing that in about a month).















I'm talking about the wave of red stupidity that flowed out of my purse today.

When I left clinic today I was in a hurry. Something dripped on my pants after I stepped outside. Like an idiot I looked up to the clear blue, cloudless sky wondering where it was coming from. I spun around in a circle looking for the drippy culprit. Then I figured it out. Possibly the dumbest thing I have done in a while. I forgot to put the lid on my gatorade before I put it in my purse. Sweet.

Red gatorade poured through the bottom of my purse onto my tan pants. My first instinct was to hold it away from me and watch the liquid trickle out. Then I thought, "There is stuff in my purse I should probably save." I must have looked asinine laying a drippy red wallet and a semi-soaked calendar out on the sidewalk. Then I remembered my phone. Oh crap, my phone!! You know, the electronic device that doesn't like to be submerged? Yeah, that thing. In my urgency to pull it out of the wet mess, it flew out of my hand and hit the cement. Somehow the thing still worked, but it was sticky and it didn't open so well. Oops.

Way to go, me.

Snack Happy Web Surfer

Everyone deals with stress differently. Some people shop while others do productive things like exercise. Eating and avoidance top my list of coping skills.

When something important is looming over my head I can suddenly tell you EVERYTHING that is going on in the world because I triple-check every website at least 5 times an hour. I could probably give you an up to date account of the weather conditions in Sydney, tell you the makeups and breakups of celebrity couples, and also give you 21 tips for new home buyers. I can't help myself. It's a sickness.

Web surfing wouldn't be complete for me if I didn't have something to munch on. Munching = shoveling random foods into my face. You know how pregnant women get cravings? I get those too as my stress levels increase. I'll decide that a box of pasta sounds good. And some ice cream. And some olives. And a handful of peanuts. And pancakes. You get the picture. Not gonna lie, it gets crazy around here and you don't want to get in my way.

On a scale of 1 to 10 my stress level is an 11 right now (hence the blogging distraction). Two exams currently block my path to freedom: Kentucky law and the NAPLEX. These two tests will strike fear into any graduated pharmacists soul. If you pass, you are official. If you fail... well... you just don't want to do that.

I took my law exam yesterday and it was absolutely horrible. And now I wait. The state will send me a letter sometime in the next week or so letting me know my fate. I am kind of OCD about checking the mail at this point.

In 9 days I take the NAPLEX. It's the clinical portion of the exams. It frightens me. Big time. However, if you live anywhere close to me you could use this to your advantage because I am cooking up a storm. Crockpots are full and baking pans are being utilized to the max.

Don't worry, I've got Tums on standby.

I'm new - don't judge

There are a lot of things I need to learn about my new surroundings. Specifically at my job. People see my white coat and assume I am the gatekeeper to all of the information they need. Let me tell you, that is not the case. When I can find my way from my office to the lunchroom without getting lost in a linen closet I silently cheer.

Usually when I walk into a room, I am bombarded with lots of questions that I cannot answer.

"When am I leaving?"
"Can I get a wheelchair?"
"Why can't I get my pain meds now?"
"Will you get me another shirt? This one is too small."

Sometimes the questions are awesomely ridiculous:
Walking onto the 3rd floor a nurse hollers down the hallway, "Who stepped in poop?!?!"
As long as it wasn't me, I am cool with it. *Quick shoe check.* Nope not me.

Seriously folks, at this point I am lucky if I can remember the code that lets me back into the pharmacy area. I have no idea what is on the patient lunch menu or why it smells funny in the hallway. I wish I did. It would make my life so much easier. But at this point, I just have to smile and shrug.

Yesterday I had to do a patient admission interview. Fairly routine at this point. I walk down the hallway and as I am ready to confidently walk into the patient's room, I am greeted with something unfamiliar: The red tape.

I don't know much, but I know that red tape in a room means, "Don't cross me without proper personal protection." Ok, I can handle this. I just need to find a gown and gloves. I do a 360 and try to figure out where I would get such items. After about 3 minutes of looking, I see a nurse down the hallway. I run up to her and ask her where I should go to get gowned and gloved. "The patient's door," she replied. Ohhhhhhh, I see. She means the door I stood in front of for 3 minutes completely bewildered.

Fantastic. I now have the gown in my hands and I open it up feeling victorious. Now was my second problem: which way does the gown go on? Crap. I have watched enough episodes of ER to figure this out, right? Hmmmmm.... do I put it on like a jacket, or like a patient gown with the open back? Once again, I run down the hallway to ask the same very nice, extremely patient nurse what I should do. "Back open," she informs me. I thanked her and went along my merry way feeling a little dumb, but at least with my gown on the right way.

Week two of my new gig is now complete. I'm learning a lot along the way, but for now I am still new, so please don't judge me. And if you do judge, please do it silently.

Sneaky rays of light

Sunburns sneak up on you. Just when you think you have them figured out, they maneuver around your SPF and leave you with an evening destined for aloe and air conditioning.

Sunday afternoon I went to the College World Series and as we arrived I pointed out the fools that got into a fight with the sun on Saturday and lost. People were passing out sunblock in handy packets so I grabbed one for later - Adam would need it eventually, I thought. As the day wore on, he finally put some on. I did not.

I checked my shoulders for lines and thought I was safe from mother nature's wrath. I still didn't apply the sunscreen. Looking to my right my mom was burning to a crisp and my dad's knees were starting to turn rosy. Yet, still I was too cool for sunscreen.

I'm home now.... sunburned like the rest. Dangit!

Just a little louder

Sometimes I find it astounding that in just over a month, someone is going to hand me a doctorate degree.

Case in point: A family approaches me at the pharmacy yesterday holding two boxes. They don't speak any English and anything that I learned in my medical Spanish class has now gone out the window. I assumed they were wondering which box of vitamins would be the best for the woman they were pointing at. There was actually no difference between the two products and so I took one box in each hand and said, "It's the same thing." The gentleman took the boxes back with a questioning look and pointed at the woman again and asked if it was for her ojos (I actually remembered that meant eyes), and I think something about her bones. I nodded, pointed at the boxes and again said, "They are the same thing." He holds up the boxes again as if to ask "Which one?" My response was to practically yell, "SAME!!!" at this poor family - at which point I realized that we just had a language barrier, the people were not deaf, and talking louder would not help anything.

I really hope this degree I get comes with a English to Spanish dictionary.... and some common sense.

Pants optional

In December of 2008 Adam and I made the big move out of Savannah and into his mom's house in Phoenix. We were there for 3 months, then made another move to my parent's house in Omaha. In theory we were going to be saving a ton of money and were going to be able to spend quality time with our families. While both of those things are true, there was one thing I did not take into consideration....

In a house occupied by parents, pants are not optional. I don't mean to make people think that I never wear pants or I am a nudist or anything, but when you live alone you can do anything you want in your underwear. Eating Cheerios, vacuuming, or waking up at 3 am to grab a glass of orange juice can all be done in the comfort of your skivvies. This is not so acceptable when other people are in the house with you.

Today I start the 33 day countdown when I will again have a place to call home and pants are once again optional.

Excuse me?

Walking into an apartment complex:

Apt Lady: "So what are you looking for in your future home?"
Me & Adam: "Somewhere that allows pets and has a nice kitchen."
Apt Lady: "Do you have a preference on which floor you would like to live on?"
Me: "Not the bottom one - I worry about noise."
Apt Lady: "What kind of noise? I live on the bottom floor and I don't hear anything."
Me: "I don't want to hear people having sex above me."

*Silence*

Adam: *Looks at me in horror*
Apt Lady: *Looks at me in horror*
Me: *Thinking to myself that perhaps I should have turned on my internal filter*

Apt Lady: "Well... I don't think that should be a problem here..."

At this point I feel the need to explain that I have lived in several places where I hear lots of things going on above my head and that was the first example that I could come up with. We had also nicknamed our last neighbor "Thud" because that is all we would hear when he came home and played with his dogs.

We didn't end up getting an apartment there. :)