Dr. Beege visits a retirement community

This month brought me to Glenaire, a retirement community that has 3 levels of service, independent, assisted living and skilled nursing (nursing home). Since I always thought I would like long-term care I was looking forward to some experience in the field. I wasn't expecting an experience like this though...

Our "office" which I will be reffering to as our closet (because that is what it was before it became the clinical pharmacy) is very small. In it fits Dr. Peoples, my preceptor, and two other students, Keri and Crystal. The closet is located at the end of one of the skilled nursing halls. One day I came back to my office to find one of the residents seated in my chair. This resident has dementia and is usually not all there if you know what I mean. So I decided to go get a coke and hopefully she would be gone by the time I got back.

Upon my return she was still there chattin' it up with Crystal, Keri, Dr. Peoples and two nurses. They were all trying to convince her that she needed to go back to the lounge. So when I showed up they used the excuse, "BJ needs his chair." This actually worked, however, as she was on her way out of the closet the nurse asked her, "Do you know what BJ stands for?" I was bracing for the worst as this isn't the best question to ask some people but her reply made us all roll with laughter. She looked at the nurse with contempt at having been asked such a silly question and replied, "It stands for Bull S*@%!" Needless to say that story made it around the whole facility and has become the theme of the month for us. Dr. Peoples and the other students like to come up with other things that BJ could stand for such as, Big Stinker (where they got that one I don't know) and other such nonsense. This makes for a fun game during our down time (not that we have down time).

Despite the unusual meanings that have been suggested for BJ, I have really enjoyed working in this long-term care facility and think I might look into this as a career. Old people are on a lot of meds and it provides many opportunities to teach them about their meds as well as suggest changes that can greatly improve their lives. 2 down seven more to go.

Sweaty Biker Girl

Fathers' Day vs. Christmas?

So the day before Fathers' Day while BJ was at work, Haylee and I put together some gifts for him. Nothing too big, just some basic essentials that he's been needing for a while now (brown dress socks, a couple packs of Koolaid, a new Star Wars key chain) oh and we also put together a little book. It has pictures of just Haylee and BJ starting from when Haylee was born up to now with a "story" to go with it, nothing too crafty or time-consuming but it turned out to be pretty cute. So we had a grand old time wrapping them up (especially considering the fact that I couldn't find any scotch tape so we used glue sticks for our adhesive) and she was pretty excited about it. More so than I realized...

That night, Fathers' Day Eve, she came into our room around 2am and whispered in BJ's face, "Daddy, we got presents!" It proceeded to happen a couple more times through the course of the night. She said the same thing as soon as we woke up in the morning but this time she started naming them off...

Isn't Christmas Eve supposed to be the night that everyone is so excited they can't sleep?

Starting Early

Yes, we like to start teaching our kids early about the finer things in life. Bree, for example, loves watching quality entertainment like Emeril Live. I often give her the option between Baby Einstein or The Food Network...Food Network wins every time and I can't say I blame her!

The Gift of Tongues

Yesterday at nursery, Haylee learned about the 5 senses. She told us what each body part was (or wasn't) for, ie. your eyes are not for smelling, your hands are for reaching (although most of us usually think of touching we were ok with reaching) but our favorite was her tongue. In answer to our question "what does you tongue help you do?" Haylee answered, "it helps you get things out of your teeth!"

1 Down 8 to Go!

So I do have tomorrow but I figure now is as good a time to celebrate as any. Tomorrow is my last day of my first rotation. I finished the didactic portion of pharmacy school last month (no more lectures and tests!). Now I have 9 (8 after tomorrow), 1 month rotations. I get to pretend to be a pharmacist under the supervision of another pharmacist while still paying tuition. Each rotation has a different emphasis and some will be more challenging than others. All of them are in the area, about half in Durham and half in Cary/Morrisville.

This month I have been at Almac Clinical Services. They package and ship drug and other supplies for clinical trials. It has been a very laid-back month. There is not a whole lot I am able to do other than watch and learn. I did give a short presentation to some of the employees here on the "ins and outs of a protocol" and put together a pharmacy manual for one study. It has made for some boring days but allows me a few weeks to take a breather from the rigors of studying for tests before I start a more difficult rotation next week.

Next week I start my geriatrics rotation at a continuing care retirement center that is only 1 mile from our house. I am so excited to have commute that is less than 30 minutes. This is the closest I have lived to my "work" since I worked on-campus at BYU. It should prove to be a little more demanding than this month as I will be assigned patients to follow and give at least 1 presentation. As some of you know older folks are on a lot of medications and provide plenty of opportunities for pharmacists to make changes to their pharmacy regimens that could improve their quality of life. I just hope it doesn't smell like a rest home.

I have the month of July off and then I will be back in Durham at a compounding pharmacy for August. In September I will be at the same company I was at last summer doing drug information. October is free. November I will be at a hospital doing a medication safety rotation. December is free as well. In January I will be at a specialty pharmacy that accepts physician referred patients on more than 10 meds. In February I will be at a Duke outpatient clinic taking care of diabetes, coumadin and cholesterol patients. For March and February I will be back at the same hospital I will be at in November working with the internal medicine team. If all goes well I will graduate on Mother's day 2009!

The light at the tunnel is getting brighter now the only problem is trying to decide what I want to do once my 10 year college career is over. Any suggestions?

A Welcome to Summer

Can I just mention again how lucky I feel to have some family nearby? We went to Emerald Pointe, a water park sort of near us here in NC, with the Saari family (Julie's sister) for Memorial Day and it was a blast! BJ and I were a bit nervous at first because Haylee didn't want to do anything and it was a bit chilly (not cold, just not screaming hot) but we all warmed up and had so much fun! Haylee was so brave and went on a couple very small water slides but her favorite part by far (as she keeps reminding us) was the octopus that had swings on it (in a pool). (Every prayer she has said since we got back she has been thankful for swimming and the octopus!) Bree had a ball just splashing in the water, oh and trying to climb out of the tube in the lazy river. BJ and Jason went off on their own to do some male-bonding on the biggest rides and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Mindy and I took our turn going on some of the "must be over 45 inches tall" rides and to sum up our experience, I shall use the word "thrilling." Let's just say we were a bit shocked that all these kids were going on the rides we were without batting an eyelash while we were so nervous that we were shaking the entire time! I felt so old and loser-esque! But trust me, I had reason to be afraid...the story why deserves its own paragraph...

About 1/3 of the way down one of the tube rides, the current from the water started pushing me equally from all directions so that I just stalled! I was stuck! I watched as rider after rider passed by me, wondering what I was doing there I'm sure. After trying to push off the side of the slide without luck, I frantically started trying to grab the handles on everyone else's tubes, despite the dirty looks I received from many of them, but it was no use! Finally, I just started yelling "Help me!" to everyone and they all just slid by me with an "oh, sorry!" and a sympathetic shoulder shrug. I thought about getting out of my tube but as I pictured myself getting swept up in the current and making the newspaper headlines the next day and knowing how I look in a swimsuit, I dismissed that option immediately. Eventually, my head started swimming with all kinds of thoughts, should I start screaming? would I be here all day? how did this happen? am I just too heavy? am I sitting in this thing the wrong way? maybe I should tell someone this ride is unsafe, that is, if I ever get off this thing? what was the last thing I said to my girls? will BJ be ok without me? should I start praying about this?...eventually, my runaway thoughts were rescued by an unsuspecting teenager who got wedged with me and I pushed off his tube with more energy than I thought I had, sending myself down the remaining 2/3 of the slide. The funniest part was Mindy, just sitting down at the bottom waiting for me. She overheard some guy, "Dude, did you see the lady that got stuck?" It took her a minute to realize that "lady" was me!