Pressure

I currently work in a family owned community pharmacy that does a few extra things like compounding on the side. On Saturdays I'm the compounder and thus get to spend an enjoyable eight hour shift making capsules, creams, IVs, and whatever else anyone needs. If there are no current prescriptions, I make an endless supply of Domperidone capsules. And I truly mean endless waves upon waves of orange capsule shells and powder that needs to be mixed and packed into each one perfectly . . . I have nightmares about the stuff, honestly.

Today I spent a few hours making eighteen ceftazidime (an antibiotic) IVs. When making an IV, the powdered medicine needs to be reconstituted, mixed, and then put into a bag to be put into the patient. It sounds simple enough, but I found out the hard way that too much positive pressure is a bad thing. In order to be able to get the mixed up medicine back into a needle from the vial, there needs to be higher pressure inside the bottle than outside. Usually it's easiest to squeeze some air into the vial and allow the fluid to fill the needle because of the pressure.

Unfortunately, ceftazidime produces gases of its own when mixed, and needs to be vented before putting the liquid in the needle. I thought I would be clever and put more air into the vial before withdrawing the fluid . . . which ended up being a mistake. Turns out fluid under pressure can and will squirt through holes in vial lids made by needles.

It also turns out that ceftazidime looks and smells very much like cat urine.

I managed to remove most of the smell from my lab coat, and then went about making some solutions for dogs. We use beef flavoring to get the dogs to think the medicine is a treat, but it's kept on a relatively high shelf along with every other kind of flavor oil we possess. (Side note: Graceful is not an adjective that will ever be used to describe me.) I reached up for the beef oil and pulled it down, catching the bottle of bacon flavor on the way. The syringe fell out of the top of the bacon vial, thus allowing the concentrated oil to cover the counter, me, the capsule machine I'd just emptied of Domperidone, and the tools I had just set to dry.

Concentrated bacon oil does not clean up well.

Now smelling of cat urine and bacon, I went on a hunt for our bottle of odor neutralizer (which we picked up after the unfortunate tuna incident). The bottle had gone missing, and the only thing I could find was a test bottle of candy cane scented spray. I didn't think the combination of smells could get any worse, so I used it on the bacon affected area.

Minty bacon and cat urine is, surprisingly, not an appealing scent combination.

The smell may have also seeped out of the compounding room and may be sinking into the carpet.

I might be needing to make and bring in cheesecake to appease the head compounding tech for this one.

- SqueezeBox