Or, what I do when I actually have some.
The last three years of my life have been spent either sitting in class, going to work, or studying. I have had precious little in the way of free time - or, rather, time not spent feeling guilty about not studying. Now that I'm working four ten-hour shifts, I get three day weekends. Glorious three day weekends. Three days of NOT HAVING TO STUDY ANYTHING.
This was going to be a long-overdue accordion post, but my roommate got home early and I didn't want to subject her to the horrors of accordion practice. We've only lived together for three weeks. I'd rather wait a bit longer before she loathes my very existence.
That said, I spent this weekend in a cooking fervor because it was snowing and I was too much of a wuss to go hike. Yes, snowing. I feel like I never left Idaho.
First, I made mushroom soup. I probably should have gotten more than one type of mushroom, but it was still pretty tasty. This recipe could use some tweaking though, so I'll be experimenting with this again. I might post the instructions once I'm satisfied.
Then I was hunting through my cookbooks and found a recipe for caramel pecan rolls. Note the total lack of pecans in the picture - this is because pecans are insanely expensive and I am poor. Someday, when I am a pharmacist and won't balk at paying $4 for a tiny bag of pecans, these rolls will be covered. Even without gold-encrusted nuts, these were pretty tasty.
-- slight interruption due to cooking disaster followed by airing out of the apartment --
I just attempted to make lemon chicken for a salad. I followed the recipe exactly but halfway through something went terribly, terribly wrong.
Our smoke detector is quite loud, in case you were wondering. And it seems that evil bastard citrus is still determined to be my cooking kryptonite. This is where I fall to my knees and scream "LEMOOOOON" at the sky a la William Shatner.
At least there wasn't any fire.
This is the doom sweater.
It's also known as Darcy, designed by Kim Hargreaves, and out of the book Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection. While it looks lovely and stylish, and early inspection leads one to believe it will be a fairly quick project, I cannot emphasis enough how insane this sweater has been for me. It's done in moss stitch, otherwise known as knit one purl one. Which takes an eternity.
I started this sweater last summer. I'm now on the sleeves. I feel like Sisyphus, people. This sweater will never end. I'm going to be 95, blind, deaf, and I will still not have finished this sweater.
Today, while I was diligently knitting and purling, the doom sweater proved to be too much for my poor bamboo needle. It wasn't happy with my soul, sanity, or manual dexterity - the cursed thing had to take down my knitting needle, too. Luckily, I had some electrical tape handy so I could perform triage.
This sweater is actively trying to prevent itself from being finished.
This? This is a cedar chest full of yarn for projects that I will never get to work on. Because the rest of my life is going to spent on this sweater that doesn't even want to be finished.
I am officially a week into my first rotation!
It got much more intense than that first day very quickly, and I discovered a) how to successfully forget every important thing we were taught in class and b) that 800 bed hospitals are very, very confusing to navigate. At this point I can fumble my way around the three towers to get back to the pharmacy, and maybe up to the cafeteria if I'm lucky.
On my first official day, I got to go on a STEMI code - a basic heart attack. I followed the pharmacist to the ER, and was allowed to help calculate doses for some of the medications. We then followed the patient to the cath lab (where they stick a wire through the femoral artery, snake it up to the heart, and inject flourescent dye to find the block). Here the pharmacist decided to quiz me on drugs that were given to the patient before we'd gotten there.
I froze. Something about aspirin? And morphine? Isn't there an acronym for this? I went into semi-panic mode - oh god, I don't know anything, I'm going to become one of those pharmacists known as Angels of Death, I'm never going to graduate or get a residency.
Luckily the pharmacist remembered being a student and, probably recognizing the look of horror on my face, laughed and supplied the acronym. I was able to fumble partially through at that point.
I can safely say I've never felt more stupid.
The rest of the week went much better, so I think the rest of the rotation will be fine. If occasionally terrifying. I had a great day in the IV hood, and another following the pediatric clinical pharmacist.
I'm also really grateful I'm not one of the students that had a much more clinical rotation as the first one. I can't imagine the anxiety I'd be having if that were the case.
You're probably aware that I have moved to Reno for my last year of pharmacy school.
It's been a surreal experience thus far because I have never lived in a big city, nor have I had a roommate. Also, coming from the uber conservative land of Southeastern Idaho, it's a joy to see that stores are open past six. And I can apparently buy liquor in the grocery store.
Today was the first day of rotations. My first rotation is hospital - meaning I'll be spending the next six weeks learning how hospital pharmacies work. Turns out, though, that I technically wasn't supposed to start until tomorrow. I was given a tour with my fellow students, then told I was free to go.
Huh.
Months of vague apprehension, weeks of nervous panic, a morning in which I likely drove my roommate insane by pacing around staring at lab values (in case you were wondering, a normal potassium level is 3.5-5.5 mEq/L. You're welcome) and it culminated in two hours of hospital tour and a free afternoon.
My instinct was to return to the apartment and study. It's been my go-to move for three years. Problem is, I have no idea what to study. I have no hospital experience. Do I memorize various IV dosage forms? Do I fumble through two-year-old notes on fluids? Do I continue this morning's frantic reading of the pharmacokinetic textbook trying to re-learn equations for dosing antibiotics?
I settled on a continued review of lab values and working on the doom sweater.
Also baking french bread for tonight's spaghetti dinner.
I figured it's better to relax on this last possible day before going in at 7:30 tomorrow for the start of my rotations. And hope I'm more relaxed tomorrow morning than I was today.
