Oregon Food Bank

I had the opportunity to go and bag oats at the Oregon Food Bank with some of my coworkers this evening. It was a fun experience getting to serve with them and get to know a bit more about them. Our team bagged 720 bags, 1,440 pounds in 2 1/2 hours.

Commuting

Morning commutes vary by a lot. Some days it is bright and sunny and others.....it isn't. The pictures on the right is the sun coming up from behind Mount Hood, the other depicts what morning in the clouds looks like.

My Job Continued

This is my job in picture form.  I am the tech next to all the check marks.  I think long hours in a small room is making us a little loopy, that or the dry erase fumes.  Things are making a little more sense and I am starting to understand what is going on....a little bit.

Trabajo

So I got a new job.....which means I am back to work.  I had orientation Monday and very crazy training the rest of this past week.  I work for Providence Health Care in their corporate pharmacy services division as a specialized tech.  The job is very different from anything I have ever experienced before.  Everyone I have talked to who has worked the job 2 years received 4 months of training.  One of the newer hires had a 6 week training because they were in a bind.  Me?  I get 2 weeks with a week of implementation.  They are short 5 techs, they hired 4 new people including me, but 3 won't start for another week and an existing coordinator just had a baby so they are needing help pretty quick.  Training involves 8 hours of learning new programs and policies.  I basically have 12 applications running on my screen at any given moment in time and all of them interrelate to each other, I am supposed to learn what each one has on it and how to use it and what I am allowed to say or do on each of them.  Thus far I am semi familiar with about 8 of them, have 4 different passwords to keep straight, and still have 4 to go.  I keep being told to not feel too pressured, that it takes about 6 months to know what you are doing and 2 years to understand why you are doing what you are doing.  Seeing as I probably don't have 2 years with them, it isn't the most helpful advice.  So that is the story of what I am doing for work.

Work Stress

I have had a month off of no job.  This has not been a fun thing.  I go crazy when I am not working and it has been hard not having work.  I have been making fancy dishes in the kitchen and have cooked a lot more than I probably ever have over the past month to take up time.  So this week I got three job offers within a few days of each other.  They are all very different along the lines of work, pros & cons, how offers have been made (or the lack there of and still an expectation to take the offer).  I hate business in healthcare (I know in general it is bad, but healthcare is really bad).  I like when an offer is made that is fair and just there.  I don't like the well what are you looking for?  How much were you making?  What have your other offers been?  I don't like the politics and the stress it creates. Look at my resume, tell me what you think and if there are problems we can talk.  I just need a job that can help us keep our debt down a bit, one that I can do for a few years before JD does clinicals, and that will be a good fit for what we need.  At this point I honestly am not sure as to which job/s I will be taking.  So who knows where or what I will be doing?  I don't, but I will let you know when I know.

Pharmacy Goodbyes

We both had to say goodbye to our coworkers and close friends at the pharmacies this week as we get ready to move.  We will miss our friends at Herefordshire and South Ogden.  How blessed we have been to work with such amazing people at such amazing places!

Goodbye Herefordshire

Today was a very sad day.  It was my last day working at the Herefordshire Pharmacy.  I have been there for more than 6 years, not long after I got out of high school.  I love my coworkers and with no turnover since right after I was hired, we have become a family.  I didn't make my official goodbyes since Earl wasn't there, but it was still hard. 

Lara Nye...Val Martinez...Earl Snyder...Deb Omer...Karen Barnes...Todd Snider...Sye Speth....Kale Bettolo...Roxanne Arave...Kyle Kitchen...and the other pharmacies I have been able to fill in, South Ogden with Betty Yamashita, Shaun Wheeler, Joe Bergen, Morgon Poll, Natalie Martin, Ryan Scott, Addie Keller-fill in extrodinaire, North Ogden, Layton, and Bountiful Pharmacies.  A lot of amazing people and a lot of amazing opportunities.  I am so grateful for their friendship and to work in an enviroment like this for so long.

Joint Team

Today was my 'last' day working at the Calton Harrison Clinic .  Last is in quotes because I will be staying on as a PRN employee while I am in Oregon, but as far as every Tuesday and Thursday, manage surgery films, Dr. Calton's only x-ray tech, I am done.  I have worked with the "Joint Team" for 2 1/2 years and have learned a lot about myself, joint replacements, and am an absolute pro when it comes to hip and knee films  It will be weird not spending Tuesdays and Thursdays with Dr. Calton, Nurse Joni, BSRN/team mate/friend, and Joe-P.A. I am definately ready and excited for a change too though.  So, so long joint team, until next time.  

Applications

I have started to apply for jobs up in the Portland area, and can I just say how tired of it I am already and it has been less than 24 hours!  There is something not fun in inputting the same information over and over and over again, tweaking your resume to fit the position, and submitting.  Hopefully some good comes of it.  In the mean time, I will keep submitting away-as my brain continues to melt.

My turn next!!!

I know a lot of people who are graduating this spring and I think it is amazingly exciting. Joni was the first to graduate. She got her BSRN from BYU-Idaho but didn't drive up there to walk, so I brought graduation to her by taking my old cap and gown with me to work and taking some standard graduation photos: Scholarly image at a desk (Dr. Calton's desk to be exact), beautiful outdoor scenery shot (outside of the West entrance of McKay Dee), and the friend with flowers photo. There are many more including the offical changing of the tassel picture. She was a good sport to let me take the photos and wear the gown, but it is big deal even if you are working the whole day.

Friday April 20th is my big day followed by May 5th for Erin yay for both of us being done with graduate school! Super exciting and congratulations graduates!

Patients

JD's Grandpa was in the hospital all last week for an extremely weakened immune system, pneumonia, and then atrial fibrillation. He is at home and doing much better now, but it was a long week for sure. It was an interesting perspective working all week and being able to look up at the room to see if he had been discharged or not. The window that is open with the light on is a view of their room from the office that I work at. It has made me think back to when I was on the same floor in a unit across the hall 1 1/2 years ago, and the blessings that came during that time when I wasn't doing very well at all. Modern medicine is truly a blessing to have available. It is amazing what can be done to save lives or improve them. I have made an effort to renew my goal of being empathetic towards all my patients, regardless of how pleasant they can sometimes be, knowing that the position of patient can be a hard one, this week has been a good reminder of that.

Trim the Tree

Here is my annual wrapping job for the year 2011 at the pharmacy. I love my favorite day of work, the day after Thanksgiving, the day on which all of this takes place. This year the door decorating has spread to the whole clinic so now it looks super cute and festive too.

A Family that Works Together......

While I am used to working with JD or Sye on occasion, usually Sye since he is based at Herefordshire with me...I can say that never before have 3 Speths been working at the same place at the same time before. It took several extraneous events to cause such a collision of family technicians to work together, but it did happen and the picture is proof. I have to admit it was kind of fun for the short time that this overlap occurred, though Deb was feeling a little left out being and Omer and not a Speth. :)

Witch Pharmacy

I work with pretty much the coolest girls ever on Mondays. At the beginning of the month we all bought the same scrub top and have worn it every single Monday since to celebrate Halloween. We get lots of compliments from the clinic staff and patients, and I feel we deserve them judging by how cute we look in this picture. So ya, our pharmacy rocks.

We were given a treat bucket one year for Halloween that says Witch Pharmacy on it with a witch cut out underneath the title-hence our unofficial name during the month of October.

Employees Only

So this weekend was a ton of fun. JD and I get to work with the most amazing people....so amazing, that we wanted to go on a vacation with them. Friday morning consisted of driving up to Bear Lake. While there we had shakes, went swimming in the lake and in the pools, walked through Minnetonka Cave, ate delicious food, played fun games, searched for binkies, watched Ice Age Meltdown several times, and had a great time just hanging out. I work with Val at Herefordshire and JD works with Joe at South Ogden. Our pharmacies will help each other out fairly often so we have all worked together at the very least a few times. The upper right picture is of Val, Dustin, Xavier, Roman, and Avery enjoying their shakes. The bottom right is Joe and Jesse. Jesse is a master at spotting chipmunks and prairie dogs from the cabin porch. We both feel very blessed to have such great friends that we could do something like this with and have the joy of working with these awesome people each week, sometimes seeing them more than our own families. It was kind of funny packing up this morning and the goodbyes consisting of 'see ya tomorrow'.

Lights Out

Saturday was a fun day. Nothing super exciting happened except that I didn't have to work. I got to the clinic and all of the lights were out. I found this to be rather strange but proceded to enter. I tried flipping on the light and a thrill coursed through me....nothing was happening! Come to find out the entire grid in the area was out and would not be fixed any earlier than 2:00.....we close at 1:00. After making a cute sign to inform angry patients about our 'misfortune' we all skipped out of the building to enjoy a beautiful sunny day. I don't remember the last time I had a Saturday off just for the heck of it and not for an impending event or vacation or in last year's case a month of illness. I always work Saturdays and have done so since I was 14. Some of the events that preoccupied my entire day off included: deep cleaned the house, ran some errands, went to a reception, decorated some summer blocks that I have been meaning to get to forever, lunch and shopping with my sister, spending time with JD. My deep clean probably should have included the lightbulb in the picture, but the dust did give a fun textured effect to the photo don't you think? I have to admit I kind of like having Saturdays off.

Pharmacy Dayz

So I have worked in a pharmacy setting for 7 years and over the years I have heard just about everything. Today I got a new one to add to the list: cute little old man comes in asking for liquid Benadryl, not an uncommon request at a pharmacy as it is used for allergic reactions or with the allergies going on, it can help with the itchy runny eyes and nose so it is completely understandable to make such a request. The followup, however, is where things got interesting....As I am ringing the patient out I give the counsel that benadryl can make you really sleepy and to be careful when taking it during the day. The patient looks up at me with big eyes and says, "Oh, well that's good because that is why I am buying it, I am going to give a bunch to my cat so I can get her hairballs out.....I am thinking about doing the same thing to my wife to get the knots out of her birds nest as well." This was followed by the same laugh that Geri does after winning his game of chess against himself (Pixar Short).

I think this places up there with the lady who wanted to know if using a pregnancy test would tell her if her goat "went and got herself pregnant again".

Physical Therapy

Today I was fortunate enough to talk to some smart guys at the rehab center about my shoulder that has been causing me a lot of grief lately. I will be fine one day and the next I can't hold a phone to my ear or I find myself sleeping on the couch half way through the night because of the ache. My new friend, Nephi, was awesome in diagnosing me with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. What started as a 'just curious' question landed me in performing different exercises to help with my TOS which included lying on an exercise ball and letting my arms dangle. You feel kind of ridiculous lying on a fitness orb with a guy staring at me, arms crossed, telling me my technique for dangling my arms was a little bit 'off' and to maybe flex my wrist a bit more and I am thinking, oh I never knew until now how much work my arm dangling technique needs! In all seriousness though, proper fitness orb arm dangling and the other exercises helped a ton and I can already feel a big difference so yay for therapy!