day 13: off today, yay!

The day has just begun and its a really beautiful day, again! Oh sun, how I've missed you! I really want to just go outside and tan (gotta love that skin cancer) but I've got some work to do :/.

Here's my to-do list for the day:

1. Contact my next preceptor.
2. Turn in all my VA paperwork for my next rotation.
3. Work on my drug charts for NRTIs and NNRTIs. 
4. Order contacts at Costco.

Hmmm... guess there wasn't as much as I thought... although travel time may take long since I have to head to the VA in West LA.

Since today has just begun, let me recap on my day yesterday.

So either my preceptor really enjoys those blank looks/deer in the headlight looks that I give him whenever he asks me a question or he's warming up to me 'cause he's been asking me lots of questions throughout the day lol. Today was an overload of questions and I had to write these things down. Hopefully this will be helpful to the pharmers reading this and if you're not a pharmer... well, maybe one day this will help you out when you're on some kind of game show like in Slumdog Millionaire :).

1. Did you know you have to take metoprolol (both succinate and tartrate) with food? I had no idea but apparently you take it with food so that the absorption is stable otherwise absorption is erratic. 
2. Apparently maraviroc (Selzentry) is a drug that you have to worry about a soy/peanut allergy because the film coating of the tablets is made from soy. There's 2 other drugs (to the knowledge of my preceptor) that also has this allergy and those are Atrovent (ipratropium) and Prometrium (progesterone). 
3. Pilocarpine is apparently used for dry mouth associated with Sjogren's Syndrome (pronounced show-gren's).
4. Isoniazid is used for TB. I got it confused with isosorbide and said it was for the heart lol.

So here's my dozo moment of the day (at the pharmacy). So this patient was getting 240 dronabinol (Marinol) which is a cannabinoid and so I'm like counting away. At least the tablets are small (not like freakin' Metformin where you need like 3 counting trays =P). Anyways, the techs always try to mess you up by saying random numbers while you're counting (it's great lol) and so I'm still counting away until I'm at 100 and I put the 100 in the vial. Then I count out another 100 so that there's 40 left on the counting tray. Here's where I messed up. I go to put the 100 into the vial and BAM! totally forgot that there were still 40 capsules left on the counting tray and they flew everywhere (all over the counter, trashcan, my pocket, drawers)! It was friggin fantastic! lol. So the original bottle had 240 which was perfectly enough but I go to count the whole 240 again and now I only had 223... uh oh lol. So I'm like looking everywhere but they are nowhere to be found! So finally I fessed up to my preceptor. Thank goodness he was chill about it haha. It was funny 'cause he was just like "What happened to the other 17 tablets?!" and he gave me that "did you take them?" look haha. 

Later on in the day this lady comes to the pharmacy and asks for a consultation so I go to help her since the pharmacist was on the phone. She tells me that she just bought a diaphragm at another RiteAid for like $50 and thought it would come with spermicide... but it didn't (what a rip right?!). Anyways, she's been all over town looking to purchase spermicide and she was wondering if we had any. So I point her over to the condom/lube area (which is right in front of the pharmacy). She says she's looked but didn't see it. Then she goes on to ask me if the foam would work as well as the gel (and being that I did my OTC presentation on Contraceptives, you'd think I would know...). I had no idea so I said I wasn't sure and she kind of looks at me with her judging eyes and responds, "Oh you probably wouldn't know anything about these things." Her tone was basically, "You probably haven't even taken a look at a penis." Thanks lady! 

Anyways, I realized that I better start getting ready to head out to turn in all my paperwork. I totally forgot that I would have to go all the way to West LA. 

Hope everyone is having an awesome Thursday because that means the weekend is near!! I'm really excited for this weekend but first I have to get through Friday which I have to work 1:30-10pm *barfs*. 

P.S. I've been meaning to post that I got an awesome package in the mail from Tanya's sister Tiff! I must seem like a real clothes whore because everyone has been getting me stuff from Forever 21 but she also sent me this adorable penguin!

You may be wondering why he's missing an eye (or he could just be winking at me ;)) but that's exactly why he was bought. Her reasoning was that because he's missing an eye, she was afraid that no one would buy him so she found him a happy home :).