Ok, so by now I’m sure you have realized that I am absolutely terrible at blogging. That is… if anybody even reads this thing. (Hi Mom! ….. Mom?)
I decided in order to become better at this, maybe I should try and do shorter, more frequent entries rather than long ones. This is an attempt to get back into it:
1) Grandpa, you called today. I will call you back soon, promise. I had to staff tonight and was running around doing chores before hand. P.S. for those of you that don’t know, I get absolute crap signal in my apartment, so I can pretty much only talk outside of my apartment.
2) Mid-residenct crisis. I am approximately 1/2 way through my residency! This is awesome! Only four more rotations to go! I have Administration, Cardiology, Internal Medicine, and Medical Intensive Care Unit in the future. Right now I am in the Emergency Department, and I have a HUGE problem… I love it. I absolutely love it. The adrenaline rush I get when someone comes through the trauma doors and the entire team collapses upon them, every person set out to do their own tasks, its amazing. Having to think on your feet, knowing someone’s life is potentially in your hands, being confident in the decisions that you are making… I love it. I really think I could see myself doing this for the rest of my life. The problem is… I’m pretty much already slated for a second year residency in Family Medicine/Ambulatory care next year. For those of you who don’t know, thats pretty much as far away from the ED as you can get. Its more or less sitting down with patients and meeting one on one to adjust therapies, medications, lifestyle changes, etc. Its great too. I love working with patients. I really want to teach one day, and this area is wide open for it, but that who adrenaline rush? Yea.. not there…
So, I’m not really sure what to do right now. I have planned for myself to do this second year residency; it is a great program that would open a ton of doors. However, I fear I may be missing out on something if I don’t pursue this ED thing a little more. The second year residency is essentially lined up for me and I have a secure job. Whereas, if I would not do the residency and pursue the ED pharmacy stuff, there is no job lined up for me. Granted, I could probably float at my current hospital, but I would be no more competitive for an ED position than anyone else. For now, I have something of a compromise. I have spoken with who I believe will be my residency program director next year and he has agreed to let me do my elective rotations in the ED. I could potentially get 3-6 months of training in the ED. A half-trained ED pharmacist is better than one not trained at all, right? Plus, there is huge potential for an amb care trained pharmacist in the ED, as opposed to the currently more accepted acute care trained. Anyway, thats what is going on for me at the moment. I have a few more weeks before I have to submit for the match, we’ll see if anything else develops…
Thanks for reading!
The Baker Chick: Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
Extreme Sidewalk Chalk - Nick Cannon
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Chicken Recipes | punchfork.com
I haven’t updated since my original post. Half because I was studying for the NAPLEX and CO law, and half because I didn’t want to post until I got my scores! You will all be happy to know, if you don’t already, that I passed all my exams easily. Now I am just waiting on the Colorado Board of Pharmacy to issue my license number. I have to send another form and a $75 check to the SC board before I can get mine from them. I can’t wait to get my license number from CO because that means I can start practicing on my own. Right now, I’m in training in the main pharmacy, and I still have to have someone go behind and check everything I do. But, once I get my license, I’m responsible for myself. I’m both excited and a little nervous. Its strange knowing that, for example, I’m checking an IV made for a baby in the neonatal intensive care unit and if I checked it wrong, it would completely be my fault. As a result, I’ve been extremely cautious, which I think is a good thing.
So, some updates:
Jasper got bitten by a dog at the park. That dog has been through more stuff than any other dog I know. Apparently some little black dog didn’t like his butt sniffed. He took a bite out of Jasper’s leg. I took him to the emergency vet and they put 6 staples in it. Luckily, the lady paid for it. He’s can get the staples pulled out today or tomorrow.
Shot of the bite
Poor Jasper with his cone. That thing got SO annoying! It lasted about three days before I took it off.
Since the exams, I’ve gotten a chance to go out and explore the city a little more. I’ve gone out with the other residents on two nights. The first we just went and did some people watching. There was a charity midnight bike ride and people were dressed up in all kinds of crazy costumes. This one was particularly creepy:
Just makes me feel weird when I look at it…
The other thing we did was we went to a Colorado Rapids game the other night. They have a major league soccer team here and we watched them play. Unfortunately, they tied 2-2, but it was still a really good game. We discovered there’s a rowdy fan section that we might try to be a part of next time. Heres some pics of the stadium:
Three of Chelsea’s friends were on a road trip across the US. They made a pitstop in CO to see various people and ended up staying with me for two nights. They were originally only going to stay one night but, driving downtown, we saw the Fleet Foxes were playing a show the next night and they decided to stay to see the show. The concert was great, the band really sounded amazing, although I didn’t like the opening act very much. It was good to have some people stay here. Even though there was four of us cramped in my small apartment, we made it happen! I might try and see if I can upload a video from my phone, just so you can get an idea.
So… that and studying for the NAPLEX is pretty much what I have been up to! I’ll try to update with less content more frequently as things occur. Last week I trained all mornings in the IV room. This week, I am training all evenings entering orders. Then, finally, next monday I start rotations again. I’m lucky in that my first rotation is in the Endocrine/Diabetes clinic, so it will at least be something I’m really interested in. So, I guess thats it for now! I am missing you all terribly and trying to find some way to come home eventually. I get to talk to Chelsea almost every night on ichat, so that really helps! She’s been great through all this. Also, a belated shout out to Billy for his birthday! I hope it was a great one! I’ll leave with some pictures of the hospital campus and library:
I think about you all the time
(Source: khandpottermore, via ladyakery)
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WARNING: This is a long one, I promise they won’t be this long in the future! May take more than one session haha
Ok, so, the idea of this is to help keep my family and loved ones up to date on what I’m doing. We all know I’m not the best at making the phone calls necessary. While I will definitely try to be better, this is one attempt at keeping everyone informed! I’ll update this periodically whenever cool/important things happen. I guess to start off, I’ll catch everyone up to this point…
I left Charleston 6/22, as most of you know. Thanks to help from Mom, Rachel, James, and Billy, my house was completely clean whenever I left, which is good! I hit the road with Jasper (who has quickly recovered from his one on one battle with a cadillac) and Chelsea. We did the trip in 2.5 days, stopping in Illinois and Kansas. Jasper was drugged up because it was a tight fit in the U-Haul, he had the goofiest grin possible on his face. It was awesome. Here’s some random cell-phone pics from the trip:
Chelsea sleeping in my lap during the drive- ain’t she cute?
Jasper drugged up
Also, I discovered I really like windmills for some reason?
Jasper enjoying the view…
So, anyway, I arrived in Colorado 6/24 and moved into my new place. Thanks to the big muscles and elegant taste of Chelsea, I got everything unpacked quickly and set up. Below are some pics of my place (which is a little messy right now as I’m studying for the NAPLEX):
Bedroom
Holga pictures I’m still working on trying to master, facebook has them if you’re interested.
Picture of the living room… notice the study stuff on both the coffee table and dining room table (I need lots of space to study)
Hallway leading to my apartment (I’m 107)
Out front of my complex. It’s a gated community and you have to swipe to get into the front doors, very nice!
Its an extremely dog friendly complex. This is the courtyard in between the two buildings, they have a ton of trashcans with dog poo bags available. Its actually really pretty! To the left is the pool and the club house, which is kinda fancy. They have a little workout room, shuffleboard/pool table and stuff.
Another shot of the living room. And finally, the little kitchen…
Mom, you’d be so proud! I’ve actually been extremely clean, despite what these pictures look like. I had just made coffee (hence the french press and pot on the stove), but I’ve been great about cleaning up after every meal, vacuuming every day, etc. I’m pretty proud of myself thus far! There’s other stuff in the apartment, but thats good enough for now!
While Chelsea was here, we went to the Denver Zoo which was really nice. Would you like to see some cell phone pics? Why sure! Here ya go!
Monkey Butt
Lion napping
Gorila just chillin (excuse the poor quality… it IS a cell phone. My favorite thing was the exotic trible women, I quickly tried taming her, but to no avail:
After the zoo we grabbed lunch and explored downtown Denver. I wish I had taken my camera, but so far it looks really cool! They have a free shuttle that goes down a pretty popular street called the 16th street mall where there is a ton of shopping, restaurants, etc.
The day before Chelsea left we went on a hike. It was really great to get out and see the outdoors and spend some good quality time talking. It was a good way to end the trip. It was about a 6.2 mile hike, about 950 feet up from the trail head to a total of 9,500 or so feet. I dunno… something like that. Anyway, we took snacks and a lot of pictures and had a great time. On our hike we saw three waterfalls and Chelsea made friends with a chipmunk. And by made friends I mean was deathly afraid of it and throwing cajun boiled peanuts at it to keep it away. Or maybe that was me throwing the peanuts… Anyway, most of the pictures are on facebook, but here are a few:
Singing Pocahontus…. “Just around the river bend….”
Chelsea’s nemesis…
He was following us I swear…
Ouzel falls, then I climbed a little closer
A little sketchy climb, but it was worth it. Notice the hill just to the left where the waterfall is crashing. Its covered in SNOW! I couldn’t believe it, it was the only snow spot I could see on the entire mountain! Well, this particular mountain I guess.
We stopped here and ate our snacks. This is where the chipmunk resumed his torture of Chelsea. Turns out, he didn’t like the cajun peanuts (which were in a can by the way!). Kyra, one of my amazing co-workers from Roper packed me an awesome gift basket filled with a ton of great stuff for the road. We ate oat n honey bars, fruit snacks, and the peanuts all from that basket. Thanks, Kyra!
After the hike back, we were both so exhausted from the physical hike and the impending doom (Chelsea leaving). I took her to the airport the next morning where I watched her walk through security, which was intense by the way! She had to go through one of the full body scanners, and THEN her bag got searched and they threw away some of her stuff! Poor kid!
Anyway, since then, I’ve been trying to get used to the area. Denver is absolutely beautiful! I will have to take 100 more pictures to try to explain it. Its so amazing being able to walk down a street and randomly look up and see snowcapped mountains off in the distance. I keep getting lucky with amazing views, but not having my camera on me! Here is a sky shot from my phone:
I live right across the street from a huge dog park, which is great for Jasper! He is getting more exercise than ever right now. Yesterday, I met 2 of my other co-residents. Their names are Courtney and Stephanie. The 4th person, another Courtney, I haven’t met yet. Courtney, Stephanie, and I went to see the Manitou Cliff dwellings which was a preserve of these old native houses built into cliffs. The pictures are on facebook, I’m sure you must be getting tired of the pictures by now! Here’s just a few:
Courtney and Stephanie
The first Lay-z-boys?
The rest of the pics are on facebook, like I said. This was the museum and gift shop. Most of the houses previously pictured were pretty small, although some of them were said to have house up to 4-6 people! There was a lot of stuff in the museum, it has been in existence since 1906 so the people knew what they were talking about!
This was pretty close to the Garden of the Gods and some other attractions, but we decided maybe we’d hit them up another day.
So, that pretty much brings you up to speed! I am currently studying hard for the NAPLEX and the Colorado law exam. I take the MPJE (law exam) on the 12th @ 5:30 and the NAPLEX on the 16th sometime in the afternoon (I’ll look that up later…).
We are lucky and didn’t have to start on the first and we have the fourth off! I am officially starting my residency on July 5th and I’m extremely excited, yet really really nervous. July is pretty much an orientation month, its just going to be crazy having people depend on me and have so much more responsibility than I am used to! I’m excited, but extremely nervous. Getting this residency was a huge accomplishment and I want to make sure I live up to their expectations! As I said, there are 4 of us (yup, I’m the only guy). I am pretty sure we all have different areas of interest, so that makes for a good, non-competitive environment. I’m really excited about the two girls I’ve met so far, they are really really nice and we all have similar sense of humors and enjoy our time off. We are already making plans for other hikes, camping, and possibly some snowboarding in the future.
I am really anxious to get the exams over so I can become licensed and start staffing. For those of you unaware, a residency is one job and I get paid a stipend once a month at the end of the month (which is going to make July interesting, but I’m really pumped for the challenge). The residency has staffing requirements, which is working in the hospital pharmacy and a step away from the straight-up clinical work that we do. We are required to staff once every three weeks, I think. Anyway, I can’t wait to get licensed so that I can pick up extra staffing shifts. I would really like to work every weekend or at least 3/4 weekends in a month to make extra money. Good thing, I don’t think its going to be too expensive here. I have run my ac for a total of about 15 minutes and just leave the sliding glass door open and my window open, its awesome! Some shade in the middle of the afternoon and I am good to go!
Ok, now, you are definitely caught up! I need to get back to studying, I’ve conquered some big subjects today but still have a ton to go! I’m going to a 4th of July BBQ at Courtney and Stephanie’s tomorrow for some good resident bonding.
We’ll see if this whole blog thing works out, aka I keep up with it. Sorry this one is so long, I can PROMISE they won’t be this long in the future. Just thought you all may like an update…
I love you all and miss everybody in Charleston.