Today, before I asploded my bike, I was really proud of myself. I’d been thinking about changing the tire on my bike for a long time and I got a good look at it and realized the sides were kinda disintegrating so it was more than time…and I’d already bought the replacement, so it was really just laziness that kept me from doing it…
And so I got to work. Problem number one was that it was really hard to get the tire out of the packaging. I prevailed and finally freed the tire from it’s plastic handcuffs. Then I read the first direction, remove tire using tire levers.
I knew that I was eventually going to need to get the wheel off the bike so I’d already done that, but how in the world was I supposed to get the tire off?! So I called my brother and he informed me that there was another missing step – deflate the tube, and press on the outside of the tire to start to free it up.
So I super struggled and came close to giving up, but eventually the tire was off the wheel. Then came what I thought was the easy part – putting the new tire on. Hahahahaha…
I eventually after making zero progress in figuring it out, watched a video. I was still super frustrated and not making progress, but I was determined that I was going to make this work, and after watching the video I was convicted that this was definitely possible. Probably should have believed it was possible prior to watching the video, but I was pretty sure at that point that it just wasn’t possible, and the only solution was to get help…
So I kept trying, and eventually got the tire onto the wheel. The last few inches felt impossible, but I finally did it. I was so incredibly proud of myself. I inflated the tube and put the wheel on the bike. Then I went to wash my hands.
I’d just finished when it sounded like a bomb went off and I was like OMG I don’t know what to do…but my phone and laptop were both on the couch near my bike, and so I didn’t have a lot of options for what to do besides go get my phone then carefully investigate.
Well, once I got to my phone I was no longer proud…I don’t know what I did wrong, but I definitely asploded my bike. And those last few inches on the left side I thought I’d never get came back off too (although to salvage the parts still intact I was gonna need to take the whole thing apart again anyway). So now I gotta go to Walmart to look for the pieces I need. And I gotta find a friend who knows how to do it right so I don’t break more things. But I can’t ride my bike to Walmart, because instead of making it more safe I made it unrideable…I feel frustrated now…
It seemed so easy every time I’ve seen someone do it for me, and I wanted to be able to do it all by myself…but I couldn’t do it myself, and the people who have done it for me in the past are multiple states away, and I feel defeated.
Sorry I fell off the face of the earth again…August is not my month. One Sunday morning my laptop would not let me log in. It just spun and spun and spun. I went to church and when I got home (4-5 hours after I’d originally tried to log in) it was still welcoming me. I learned that the hard drive had died…which means bye-bye mr lappy pants…and it was hard because usually my dad would be the one I would call in that situation to help me figure out how to fix it or what to do next and just to talk about it. And even before this had happened I’d been struggling a little about my dad…so yeah, it wasn’t a great day.
A few weeks later I finally have a laptop again and am starting to come to terms with my entire previous life being likely lost forever. That is hard because it is really hard to lose things that you’ve had since at least 2011, as well as things you were still using like your budget (that you’d finally gotten re-caught up with that week) and your CV (that you’d updated just a couple weeks ago). It is also hard because it was a little bit of a reminder of leaving my job last summer when it didn’t occur to me that I may want to have any of my documents from my laptop there, and then have realized over time how many things I really wish I had a copy of…lol, I was told HR could get me whatever I needed…that was either a misinformed statement or (more likely) an intentional lie designed to frustrate me. HR had no access to anything, not to mention that HR at that hospital was less than ideal to put it lightly.
I also am not ashamed to admit I cried that day and later. My new laptop came in the mail. I had ordered a different one from Best Buy than the one that had been recommended to me from Dell, because it had slightly lower specs but also had a slightly lower price and that was an exchange I decided I was okay with. I had been a little hesitant to do that (and I find big purchases really stressful, and even more so when it is for something I don’t know a lot about – I just feel afraid that I am going to mess up). And I got the laptop out of the box and setting it up was stressful…
And I realized that I couldn’t remember my Microsoft product key so I couldn’t use word/powerpoint/outlook. I looked everywhere I could think of, and I found a 5-year limited warranty for the muffin tin I got for Christmas 7 years ago, and I found some other equally useless items, but I did not find where I wrote down that information. I do remember very clearly writing it down and putting it somewhere special to ensure that it didn’t get lost in case I needed it again. I even remember where that “somewhere special” was…the problem is that I’ve moved probably about 5 times since then which has led to things being moved around so many times that I haven’t got a clue where things are anymore. It seems like things have just completely disappeared. I thought that perhaps I had a receipt somewhere…and I did…and it showed I had paid an extra $10 for a CD backup of my download information. And you can probably guess that I definitely can’t find that CD either. Hashtag frustrating. But the biggest problem was when I realized the speakers weren’t working…
Over an hour at Best Buy later, the Geek Squad had determined they’d done all the things they could do for me for free and got permission to exchange my new laptop for an identical but different laptop…but the store was closing so I couldn’t check that it worked while I was still there. Luckily it did work.
Another thing made very evident when setting up my new computer. For some reason I cannot explain my new laptop could remember the links saved to my favorites – but not the ones that were actually saved any time recently…nope…it remembered the ones from somewhere between March and June 2020…so that was pretty much zero percent helpful, but it did show how tightly I hold to people and experiences that are important to me and how hard change is for me. I had a link to a prior employment’s email account I’d lost access to in summer 2017 for example, and a friend’s baby shower registry link for a kid who in 2020 would have been around 3 years old. I haven’t talked with that friend in years, but she is incredibly important to me, because she is someone who was amazingly inclusive during the time in my life where people were lucky to even get a few words out of me in person, but could get a multitude of written notes…it wasn’t a lot of people’s style, but I am so grateful for the people who recognized that even someone who really struggles to communicate may still yearn for community. I might be struggling to use my voice and big groups may be a huge barrier, but I was also extraverted and really needed people who didn’t mind someone practically clinging to them for survival in social situations.
Lol, this post was a lot longer, but then I guess I didn’t save it…but yeah, I am incredibly grateful that August is on the way out. September isn’t perfect – I can tell you a lot about where I was various days in September last year just like August 2019 is highly preserved…hashtag trauma…but I think I am doing well enough for it to feel less crushing. Most of the September trauma led to something ultimately better for me than would have likely happened without it. I learned that standing up for my patients and my team might put a target on my back, but my patients and team deserve that care. And I learned that good people will recognize my worth and do what they can to do the same for me.
(intervening semi-related but incredibly tangential story that I may very well have told before…one night a little over a year ago when I’d been at the hospital well into the late evening, a family of one of my PICU patients who were returning to the hospital after taking a break to take care of things at home saw me waiting to turn left and I’m not sure if it was because they remembered seeing me much earlier in the morning and knew it’d been a long day or if they would have done it regardless of the circumstances, but they stopped when they didn’t have a stop sign or really any reason they would be obligated to stop so that I could turn so I could get home. It was little and only marginally impacted their time to the hospital but made a huge difference for me because even after I spoke up about what hours worked best for me and got my end time moved up to 8:30pm instead of 9pm, those evenings still were long and kept me up at least a little bit late which added to the large sleep debt I’d been accumulating via grief. Also, I remember that family because at the beginning of their child’s stay, very likely because of the trauma of going from having a reasonably healthy child to one who is in the intensive care unit, they were somewhat difficult to work with, but by the time they were nearing discharge to a long term rehab facility (with their child still far from baseline) they were so kind, caring, and appreciative of the team. I never expect a thank you from families, but it always is meaningful to be recognized. I think sometimes it feels especially good when the outcome isn’t amazing…because when you were able to be involved in a big piece of the recovery you can feel some self-pride, but it is harder to feel good about your own contribution even when stepping back it really was significant when the outcome is that the patient is not going home in the condition you were hoping they would. I can no longer say I remember every single one of my patients, but I do remember a large proportion of them to some extent, and most patients while they are in the hospital I do get really attached and think of them as if they were my own children…which makes it incredibly difficult to let go. As much as I want my patients to be ready to go home, I miss them and worry about them when they leave. And I mourn the patients who do not make it. It was probably good for me this winter to be forced to completely disconnect and not be able to follow my patients from afar. I much prefer work life blend over work life balance, but I will admit that during PGY-1 I’m not sure by the second half of the year if I ever had even a single day I didn’t look at anything patient-related…sure, I took days off, but on those days off I was still too worried about my patients to not at least give a cursory glance over at a few of them throughout the day…I’m not someone who values or even desires leaving work at work. Caring for my patients really is my passion).
Anyway, I learned that I really am an excellent pharmacist with a great ability to interact professionally. Hashtag no more imposter syndrome…okay, to be honest, imposter syndrome tries to creep back in on occasion now that it has been a little longer since figuring out that I am incredible, but I am brave, I am a willing learner, and I am learning to listen to the people who recognize my value rather than those who are afraid of the shadows cast by my light. And I learned there are bad people in the world and you really can’t kindness people into becoming better people. Not being confrontational just teaches them that they can get away with their antics, and while you may not feel comfortable addressing the issue or even may feel uncomfortable seeking safety, that doesn’t mean it was okay for them to treat you like that.
I’ll end this with some advice I got from the internet…if life gives you lemons, do not make lemonade unless it also gave you sugar and water or your lemonade is going to suck. The internet also suggests squirting lemon juice in bad people’s faces and freezing the lemons to throw at the bad people, but I do not believe in repaying evil with evil. I believe in loving people even when they deserve the opposite. You may be exhausted of being the bigger person, but do it anyway. Prove to yourself just how big and strong and brave you can be. It might not feel strong and brave, but the people watching you will see it.
100% unrelated but a few days ago I watched a youtube video about this 19 year old who was fighting to get off the sex offender registry because if he knew it was a crime he wouldn’t have done it…like, um, lol…it was still a bad choice to have sex with someone you didn’t know and who was unable to consent regardless of whether it was a crime. There are reasons we have these laws…and then my very minimal trust in the American justice system was broken even further when at the end of the video I found out he was successful…the court determined that it wasn’t reasonable for him to have understood what he was doing wrong, and considering the girl has decided she doesn’t want to be characterized as a victim that they would take him off the registry…and I was like WHAT?!?! That is not how this game is supposed to be played. I understand that people can change. If his reason was that he knew better now and would never do it again then I’d understand taking him off the list, but with his reason being he didn’t know it was wrong, I do not agree. As a woman and therefore the gender more likely to be attacked, I do not appreciate the court determining that not knowing it was a crime is a valid defense. Our court system should protect the vulnerable and to do that they need to recognize that there are some things people should know are crimes…like would he have similarly gotten off as not needing to claim his felon status if he claimed to not know murder was wrong? Like where do we draw the line in what crimes are relatively okay to commit so long as you claim to not know you weren’t supposed to do that?
The end. You were probably tired of hearing my random stream of consciousness by now anyway…
Well I had a long post written out in my head…and then 8 hours later I finally sat my behind in front of a computer to type the post and completely blanked on everything I was going to say.
But then I watched a video on youtube. It was an interview with a kid who looked to be about 10 years old about a shooting. The kid was describing what happened and the reporter asked what he was thinking and he eventually said “when he shot me I thought maybe he wasn’t my real friend.” A small part of me was like ‘ya think, no kidding he isn’t your friend,’ but another part of me said hurt people hurt people. Not that it makes the other child’s behavior okay, and not that it is necessarily a reason in this case because I know nothing about them to know the dynamics of the relationship nor anything about the perpetrator to know anything at all about what happened, but they could have legitimately had an amazing relationship and the other child was triggered and did something dumb in the moment that he’ll regret the rest of his life…but the biggest part of me said I know how that feels. Not the legitimately getting hit by a bullet part, but the deep pain of betrayal when someone who should have had your back uses your trust and their unique knowledge of your vulnerability to wound you to the core. The people at the old job knew relationship and communication was something I felt insecure about, and they exploited that. They wanted to destroy my confidence. Instead, it made me briefly hurt and upset because I knew their accusations were untrue and felt the pain of betrayal, but very quickly it became comical, especially as I realized how much better off I was away from them. I was terrified of them, but they didn’t have as much actual control over me, and they couldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing my reaction to the cruelty that was normalized within the walls of that pharmacy department. Everyone knew it was wrong, but no one was going to speak up for fear of becoming the next biggest target. No one was immune unless they were openly gay and tried to suck up to one of the biggest perpetrators who was also gay, but some people definitely got it a lot worse than others…and I was one of those people. Maybe it’s like in The Healing Path that they are most determined to put out a flame that shines brighter than their own…regardless of reason, like lol yeah, totally I believe that you think my written communication skills are unprofessional and completely unacceptable, that is why you had me write emails for you and sent them as if they were your own completely unedited. You totally think I am unable to effectively round, that’s why when rounds went into lunch time you walked away and left me to finish the second half on my own…so either you don’t mind if my awful skills undermine your reputation and negatively impact patient care, or these are just baseless accusations, you think I am a great communicator and an excellent pharmacist, but you wanted a reason to tear me down…
Also, speaking of control, I saw this quote on Facebook this morning, and it really spoke to me. “when a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you. The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth just like you did.” It feels hopeful, because if the goal of secretly recording cell phone video of me and the other things that happened later were just about an attempt to control how others see me then maybe I am safer than I have felt for a long time. Maybe they’ll think that was enough…but yeah, it was very clear that when they no longer could directly impact me they went to work on controlling what they could control: others’ perceptions of me. I had a similar shift in perception control in college though that person never fully lost her more direct control of me. And both times it kind of feels like relief but also feels almost worse like you’re just waiting for the next shoe to drop expecting it to be worse than it has ever been. And that can sometimes feel harder than the more direct attack, because at least those direct attacks were more predictable.
One thing I was also thinking today after listening to another youtube video is how that whole find a caring adult if you need help in public that was taught as a part of childhood safety, well sometimes even as an adult it feels like you just want to find that adult to tell you it’ll be okay. In the video this girl who was high school aged was telling the reporter interviewing her that she’d been separated from her dad in the chaos of the event and her phone was dead, but she was glad to be there, and you could just see in the reporters eyes and body language how uncomfortable she was with letting this girl walk away knowing the girl was too old to be held in place until her parent was found. She assured repeatedly that if the girl needed any help to please let her know, but ultimately had to let the girl go back into the crowd and pray things would work out for her…also made me think about the age at which we stop asking for help. At Walmart last weekend a child around maybe 3 to 4 years old came up to me and another shopper and said she couldn’t find her mom. She wanted help and was visibly calmer when the man scooped her up and told her they were going to get the employees to help find her mom…but yeah, like sometimes I wish someone could scoop me up and make me feel safe.
Another video I watched taught me that apparently I am being discriminated against.
Back to that in just a second, because I can’t wait any longer to say that omg, I learned something today. I thought my primary receiving love language was time. I think it might actually be words. Like y’all I am not supposed to be having a good week right now because we’re on what I’ve named the week that wasn’t…but today I gave myself a high five and did a little happy wiggle (like a happy dance but with bum and back never leaving the couch and feet never leaving the floor…so yeah. I’m a reviewer for JPPT. A couple years ago someone said I should sign up, so I did, and the rest is history. Well, there is this person’s manuscript that honestly was not good the first time it came to me, and I was too polite to say no, do not publish this, so instead we’ve gone through multiple rounds of edits and it isn’t awesome but it isn’t awful anymore so now I do hope the authors and journal decide to continue with the editing process until it is publication ready. Well, today I got a message from the author gushing with thanks for the significant assistance in improving their work. I know it can be hard to hear that your work wasn’t amazing and needs a lot of improvement, so if anything I expect any comments I receive in reply to be snarky, defensive, defiant, or defeated. I would be lying to say there were no comments meeting any of those criteria, but the positive message at the end showing appreciation and recognition meant the world to me.
And, among other things, yesterday I was working with a transport and NICU team to stabilize a patient. I felt like I’d been kind of useless and slow and more in the way than helpful. I love emergency response, but I felt like maybe it’d been so long since I’d been in a clinical role that I just wasn’t good at it anymore. I guess I assessed my contribution wrong. I overheard the transport RN raving to the PICU fellow about the amazing pharmacist and how these situations usually feel nearly impossible, but this pharmacist has been so helpful. And I found out today that a neonatologist I’d been using as a runner for the items I needed talked to the director of pharmacy at the hospital to let him know how impressed she was and request they have me around more often. I’m glad she didn’t feel insulted to be used as a runner rather than for her clinical skills, and I’m thankful the director of pharmacy passed that compliment along…and lol, yes, I would LOVE to be a permanent member of that team. The dynamics of that situation were really as positive as an unexpected medical situation can be. People asked appropriate questions, valued each other’s perspectives and contributions, were patient, admitted their perceived mistakes, and recognized the role they needed to play on the team. Okay, and any team that *wants* to include a pharmacist earns major points in my book, because I’ve been on teams where pharmacy is valued, but I’ve also been on teams where the unspoken perception is that a nurse and/or doctor can probably do anything a pharmacist can do so why would we want you around? Plus, a highly skilled physician who doesn’t feel too important to go get more needles and labels for example is a huge asset. It shows to me that this is a team that really cares about outcomes above reputations and power structures, and that is the kind of team that aligns with my values.
Back to being discriminated against…apparently it is discrimination for Starbucks to charge me more for hot chocolate than they’d charge someone for a cup of coffee (despite it costing them significantly more to make) because I’m allergic to caffeine so I should be able to get the drink I want for the same price as the one that will make me itchy, nauseous, head-achy, and drowsy. And it is definitely also discrimination that Applebee’s wants to charge me more for a steak than for a salad, because I prefer the steak and do not really like salad. (If you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm, I am making fun of a ‘news’ video in which people complained that they were being discriminated against because the items they either were not allergic to or simply preferred cost more than the alternative…a restaurant owner from a different restaurant than the one in question was interviewed at the end and stated that these items cost her 1.5 times or more as much as the alternatives so it is difficult to afford, especially when the products also are more likely to go bad prior to being used up but she keeps them the same price so that people don’t have to feel guilty for choosing what they really want. The reporter’s response was that this was how all restaurants should operate…my response was, umm, no, if it costs them more, they have a right to pass those costs on to the final consumer…plus chances are that keeping everything the same price will ultimately lead to a price increase for the people who want what should have been the less expensive option, and it isn’t really fair for the salad eaters to subsidize the steak eaters).
This is going to be a very random post because I need to write but I don’t feel safe writing it…
Fact, original cheerios (or the generic version) are the best cereal in the world. Also the box of said best cereal that I just threw away (because it was empty) had a game on the back…fill in the name of all the states on the map from the list at the bottom. I am very proud to have gotten 48 right…but let’s be honest…it was only a little skill and a lot of luck. I for the most part know which part of the country the states are supposed to be in and I know the real obvious ones like California, Minnesota, Florida, and Missouri that have a very distinct shape…and I was proud that I knew where DC would go if it had been pictured…but I mean, I also had to scribble out where I wrote Colorado because I ran out of big touching states and I knew Montana and Wyoming were supposed to touch…and eventually I reached a point where I had a bunch of states left and selected places to put them pretty randomly…
Completely unrelated thought…most places I’ve been I haven’t been fit tested for n95 masks…and one of them I knew the n95 was protecting me less well than the barely level 1 masks we were using for general universal masking, because with the n95 I could feel the air against my face as I walked down the hallway whereas I couldn’t with my other mask…but recently I did fit testing and I could see one of the two options was definitely not going to work with my facial structure, so I did the other one…and I mean technically my paper says I passed…but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to taste the spray and I did…so…there’s that…but I’m happy with it because I got what is by far the most comfortable n95 I’ve ever used, and it is one of the designs that folds flat if I were ever to need to re-use a mask, and it is one of the styles that I don’t feel like looks super weird…so yep, I am satisfied. And besides, if I were gonna get COVID I’d probs have gotten it after being inches from someone’s face who had it a year ago while he yelled for an hour…and honestly COVID was only temporarily a big concern for me. Noro I am still freaked out as ever about, but not COVID, and it still for some dumb reason is socially appropriate to wear a mask around respiratory illness but not around noro, and that is a huge part of why I never want to go back to working with adults. Adults are disgusting. Neonates nearly never throw up. They might spit up, but that doesn’t typically involve germs like vomit does…
It’s been a long week. I don’t feel safe writing about it, but I feel helpless, like nothing I can do is ever enough. And that makes it feel like all the hard things I’ve gone through seem even more unfair…like when it is easy to see the good that came after the negative it feels less bad, but when the pain is real today it is hard. The book I read recently said it well though…I have forgiven the things done to me and the hurt those people caused in the past, but I haven’t yet forgiven the pain that situation is causing today. Life isn’t fair, but I really want it to be.
Lyric break:
He sends his angels to open the prison doors, to come and set the captives free, to offer them more. To break open the doors of fear destroying your dungeon of doubt. He sends his angels to open the prison doors. Quietly they lead them out.
I don’t know how to earn points on ASHP, or how to lose points though I know both can be done, but I do know that somehow I currently have 777 points which puts me in first place. I am proud of that even if for all I know the points are distributed randomly by a toss of the dice every day…
Did you know that spiders are usually nocturnal? If that isn’t a good reason to go to bed I don’t know what is. Today I got up, had lunch, checked Facebook, had breakfast, made cookies (kind of – the recipe sorta failed for some reason) cleaned up, then had dinner. And I already want to go to bed after I finish church.
So I really wondered why this post didn’t get any likes because usually even my worst posts get at least one like by a week after posting…but apparently last week Saturday I did not actually hit post…but that means now I can write a few more sentences…(or paragraphs…we’ll see what happens)
I learned this week how much refrigerated water I am willing to pour on my head…it’s about 3 ounces or so.
So I was already up late and exhausted…and I’d just finished working the shampoo bubbles through my hair when the water ran out…obviously I couldn’t go to bed with a head covered in shampoo bubbles, but one thing I love about myself is that I am a problem solver. I will figure out how to make things work with what I have available. Some people might wish I asked for help or resources sooner (myself included once in a while), but asking for help is hard, and most things are reasonably solvable with a little effort (and sometimes asking for help also doesn’t feel safe because hashtag trauma). So I went to the refrigerator and grabbed the bottle of water that is usually there waiting for over-heating emergencies, because my body struggles with heat, so it can really help to have cold water to help cool down from the inside if needed. I had aspirations of getting the shampoo out then using conditioner and rinsing the conditioner out if enough water was left…as it turns out, refrigerated water is extremely unpleasant to pour over your head when you are not overheated. I got enough rinsed out that my hair wasn’t visibly or audibly soapy and took a break…then I took a drink and realized before I refilled the water bottle it’d most recently had a grape drink in it. And that is when I decided it didn’t make sense to keep pouring it over my hair because with how cold it was I really didn’t want to pour any more on my head, and if it was gonna be sticky anyway that gave me enough excuse that it might as well be sticky from leftover shampoo and no conditioner rather than from grape drink residue…and that is why reliable water supply is on my wish list for future dwellings…considering I do not infrequently rent sight unseen and people aren’t likely to disclose that type of issue I am not sure how realistic figuring that out in advance is (right along with no mice, no ants, no spiders, and probably no jumpy bugs, but I’d accept jumpy bugs in exchange for no ants, mice, spiders, or hornets) but considering that wasn’t the first time I ran out of tap water in this home, it is something that is important to me…who knew how thankful a girl could be for running water in 2022…
Can I also just say that while operational pharmacy is just like falling off a bike, clinical pharmacy, or at least adult clinical pharmacy, is not…this week I started attempting to re-learn adult pharmacy. And I feel like I am not an awful pharmacist by any means, but that I am also far from the pharmacist I was back in like February 2021 which was the last time I cared for adult patients…and even then I was competent and I could fight even the non-critical battles without being asked, but I wasn’t super comfortable with it…and also I am probably judging myself harshly given that I am deciding I don’t remember how to be a great adult pharmacist when I’ve tried for less than 15 hours…like even I can look at that and be like girl, give yourself a chance…and I want to be awesome at it, but honestly it isn’t really vital since I’m a pediatric (mostly NICU) pharmacist by training and by passion, so all I really have to do is be good enough to get by while deciding what to do with the rest of my life. My physical (and emotional) safety is my number one priority, so if learning to do something new is what it takes then that’s what I am going to do. After significant trauma in mid-to-late 2021 I’m hoping to find somewhere with enough stability for a while to start to heal before moving on again, but I also would rather sacrifice stability for safety if it has to be a choice.
…but now me is kinda wondering where November me may have put the extra watch bands…I had this great idea a few days ago to switch them out because they were getting a little discolored. I figured by the time the new ones were anywhere close to wearing out the battery would probably be dead anyway, and I am a buy a new watch when the battery dies kind of girl, not a replace the battery kind of girl, so I figured it would be fine to totally destroy the old band by ripping it in half…so of course I did that then went, umm, where is the replacement band…and couldn’t find it anywhere…I did find the instruction sheet, but none of the boxes I opened or baskets I went through had the bands in them…and I’m at a loss as to where else to look. Before I gave away my desk the watch bands were in the top drawer…but I dumped the contents of the desk out on the floor before I gave it away and the things it was next to have been located, but not the watch bands…I do have a backup watch (that is mostly just used for interviews because it looks nicer but is hard to read and not as comfortable) but that is not what I want to wear every day…so I’m hoping I’m gonna have a lightbulb moment soon…
Today I went outside and tried to bike. I didn’t get very far because omg was it a lot more hot and humid than I expected and it felt yucky, but I did see a sign on someone’s front door that said in bright bold red and black letters: private property, keep out, no trespassing, that means you. Lol. I thought about taking a picture and captioning it: I bet some real friendly people live here…but then my survival instinct kicked in and decided people cuckoo enough to put up that sign are probably also people who will claim that taking a picture from the very public sidewalk is somehow stealing a piece of their home…but yeah, that gave me a good laugh.
I know I’ve been awol for a while. Life happens. Fear happens. It all happens.
I watched that video today. It is amazing to see the justice system working as it should to protect victims. The fear in the victim’s voice. The care and concern in the lawyer’s voice. The seriousness with which the judge took the situation. The flippant and evasive and excusing attitude of the abuser. It was very real, and the professionals’ actions were exactly how things should have happened. It gives me hope to see people in that kind of authority do the right thing. I’ve seen so much of the wrong thing happening that it is easy to forget the good.
Wanna know something that I previously would have never considered good? My occasional hesitance to approach people. Lol. So between early October and early December there was this place I biked past that honestly looked almost like it could be Santa’s workshop. It was smaller than a garage but located on a property where you would expect a garage to be, and it just seemed enchanted somehow. Today I saw someone in front of an actual garage. That garage looked like it could potentially be similarly magical inside…except the guy had a mustache. I know very few males with mustaches. One person I don’t actually know but know of has a mustache. And he is creepy. And a creeper. And so, of course, my brain goes hey, this dude has a mustache and does not look creepy. I should thank him for not being creepy. And then after I was home I was like, umm, girl, pretty sure if you thank someone for not being creepy then probably you are the creepy one. And then I had to agree with myself and realize that my social difficulty could actually work in my favor.
Speaking of biking, I went out today to ride my bike. I still haven’t found the ideal location, but it isn’t unusual for me whether it is my permanent path or not to have a route that takes me past the same location multiple times. And today I had to bite my tongue to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Spoiler alert, I wasn’t. You guys, this one house I biked past I am fully certain the door was a completely different color each time I went past. The first time it was a beautiful bright red. The next time it was white with some navy blue swirls. The third time it was a sky blue with a hint of green. It was very odd. And now even though the path I took to get there was less than ideal (I hate that I live on the opposite side of the freeway from all the places that seem good to bike). Technically there is one place I could bike that could avoid the one stretch of road that has made all of my new bike path attempts only kinda okayish, but it would require my first turn away from home to be a left instead of a right which seems like why does that even matter when I put it in writing, but in real life it just doesn’t feel comfortable…remember this is coming from the girl who can often feel the shape of a room and therefore has to really get used to how a new place feels before it feels comfortable.
But as dangerous as biking as felt at times because of what happened in December, today I definitely wished I was biking rather than on foot. I wasn’t sure if I was going to share this story, but apparently my fingers decided this is what we’re doing. This morning I was minding my own business and walking along the edge of a road that doesn’t have a sidewalk. This white SUV pulled into the right lane and stopped until I was almost up to that point then started moving again before stopping again this time on the shoulder where I was obvi going to be needing to walk before again driving off when I got close enough to need to start figuring out whether I was going to try to get past on a steep hill that was going to become a bridge over a road running another direction or if I was going to walk into traffic to get by. The SUV had tinted windows so I haven’t got a clue who was inside…but it seemed that the actions were targeted. And the fact that there was a white SUV in November that I thought I saw someone dangerous in made it even more scary that another white SUV was doing an intentional act in my regard. Realistically it is very possible and dare I say more likely that the actions had nothing to do with me and instead was someone lost or having some other issue that just coincidentally put them near my path, but I wished so much in that moment I had a better escape method, ‘cause feet are so slow…and I wasn’t likely to get to church on time if I turned around on that stretch of road, plus turning around would have put even more attention on me which I did not want
And then after church I needed to prove that walking was safe, so I was walking around the block and this guy comes up to me and asks me my name. I am not a liar but I also was a bit wary given the earlier experience so I gave the guy my nickname. I don’t really answer to my nickname anymore since I’ve worked with so many people whose given name is my nickname or for whom their nickname is enough of an identity that it’s the only name on their CV, so it seems a little safer than giving put my full name and it isn’t a lie given that ‘name’ is in the title and plus all of the letters are in my real name…but somehow it seems wrong even though the guy was giving me weird vibes. And I saw the guy in a white hatchback two streets away a few minutes later. And like a couple blocks later there was a white normal car that was near me when we were both stopped at an intersection who started yelling something I didn’t understand at me, so I just screamed NO at this guy leaning out his window to make it clear to anyone else around that this was not a desired encounter. What is it with white vehicles and unwanted experiences this morning?
Speaking of vehicles…maybe a month or so ago now I was in a parking lot and there were like 3 or 4 yellow cars all parked next to each other and it was so cheery it made me smile. And then as I drove I saw more yellow cars on like every street I turned on and there were like 4 yellow cars parked in the same driveway…it was so cool and weird…like yellow is not a common car color and yet it was possibly more common than the typical blue coming in first after varying shades of black and white…I took some pictures then realized that it would give away more of my location than I was comfortable with to post any of them even if I have noticed that basically everywhere I have lived has had a lot of streets with the same name…
Something I was thinking recently…the way I look for and value potential positions and what I really value pretty much do not overlap at all. Part of that is probably the information available in the typical job posting, but I think a lot of it is maybe that I really want to be the strong person who can do whatever she sets her mind to and admitting that some places are not safe, for example doesn’t align with that vision…even though I can recognize objectively that it is very true that for the needs of the patient to come first the needs of the employee need to come before that.
This is what I probably would rank as the things most important to me in a position:
Job title as surrogate for expected clinical activities (have learned that this is not effective given what a particular position does at any given institution is not standardized and more than that, may change over time).
Is institution a children’s hospital vs serving a mixed population (this one I don’t think is inherently bad…but it also as you will see below is not my top priority when I’m really honest about what I need. I feel most competent caring for kids, but I have enough adult experience at this point in my career that if I need to be able to cross cover adults the population will have safe and effective care, but potentially not 100%optimized care because I’m not going to pretend that I keep as on top of the adult lit as I do peds. I care, but I’m not as passionate about it).
Opportunities to mentor/teach (this is definitely important to me, but I’ve learned I can be a little flexible in what that looks like or how often it happens in order to get the other components that are important to me.
Prestige of institution (I can safely say this is more of an ‘I should care about this’ than a firm and fast rule given the residencies I selected as my top choices each year)
Culture/institutional values/everything else (and let’s be real – in a zoom interview I’m going to rely on the culture described in the job description and hospital website rather than what is observed – which is why real life interviews are so important…and on site rather than *just* in person…one place I interviewed in person at midyear and didn’t get this sense but then I interviewed on site and was like I wouldn’t say no if a position was offered, but I feel like these people are flaunting their money and that is really turning me off…I get that an institution needs to be financially stable enough that the position will be stable, but I just got too many vibes that they were proud of their money and it didn’t sit right with me – if you’ve got extra then invest it in your patients. What is odd though is that realistically they probably didn’t spend more on me than any other institution, it was more the vibe than the actual dollars being spent)
The things that I realized that I actually look for have very little overlap with that list of what I think I want:
Physical and emotional safety in the workplace (this is non-negotiable and something I never thought I’d need to include on any list of desires until I ended up somewhere I didn’t have this).
Feeling valued and validated by those I work with (y’all, it makes all the difference in the world to be validated and valued).
A sense of belonging in the community in the workplace (I want to be included. I don’t want to be isolated. I don’t want to be just a faceless source of work getting done).
Believing in the overall patient and family outcomes my organization provides to patients (basically, I want to be proud of the outcomes where I work – which I guess also draws in believing in my team and seeing that the whole team is supported)
My day to day tasks/everything else (it was hard to admit, but I ultimately realized I have been far happier in positions doing tasks that weren’t my favorite but while surrounded by people who cared than I ever was doing what was supposed to be my dream in an environment that was not positive).
I had some other things to write about but instead I just want to post a lyric from Hey Hey by Superchick that’s been in my head today…”some people you can never please…but I won’t bow down even if the whole world thinks I’m crazy…no one can sing the song you do. Be true be legendary you. But I won’t sell out even if the whole world thinks I’m crazy…so put your hands in the air if you’re crazy like us…why kiss the feet of the people who kick you when you can be anything that you want to.”
Of all the things to be stuck in my head, not too bad…much better than when it was only the “love la la love love will change your life” line from This what they meant by Leanna Crawford…
edited 3/29 to say I recognize I probably should have softened this post if I wanted to post it, but after accidentally deleting the previous post I felt like I needed to hit post without the now typical delay of a couple days at least to make sure I’m not saying too much…all that to say read at your own risk and please be kind…
(Upstate bye bye bye)
Alternatively…
What kind of person do I want to be
(stand – newsboys)
I wrote a really long post I was pretty proud of yesterday…then I accidentally permanently deleted it because I’m awesome like that…
But here’s what’s on my mind today…match day…
I already wrote about some of my thoughts, but the other thing I want to write about is how different two even supposedly positive match days could be. And that is probably part of why match day has been so emotional this year when I wasn’t even supposed to be that invested in it.
In 2020, I matched and I got a call. To be honest I don’t know most of what was said on the call because I could only hear like one out of every 3 words, but what came through loud and clear was that I was wanted, I was cared about, and I was going to be supported. And you know what, it was true. I was supported, and I was wanted, and people did care about me. I had value. I was a member of the team. I wish I could have stayed there forever.
In 2021, I matched and it was a very different story. That afternoon I received an email. The gist of the email was we think you are going to fail, we do not trust you, we plan to micromanage you and hold your hand like you’re still 5 years old. I was annoyed, but I was willing to overlook it because this was what I thought I wanted, because it had the magic words in the title that I thought were going to make everyone want me…and…well…as much as I didn’t want it to be true, a lot of that was true. The micromanaging didn’t get better when I started. Not only was it clear by actions, but also by words that I was not wanted. I was not included, not valued, and it was thrown in my face as the dumbest idea ever when I expressed wanting to be part of the team despite others having the same opinion but just not being willing to speak up about it.
I guess I am learning that I should trust my instincts about people, because I am pretty good at identifying who the safe people are and who wants to hurt me. (there is a large gap between those two categories, but I will be the first to admit that I’m better at black and white so it is easier for me to have two incredibly distinct categories and a bunch of people I haven’t categorized yet than to try to really see things as a spectrum…And I definitely learned my lesson that the best job ever on paper means nothing if the people make it a nightmare. I’ve always known people were important to me, but now I know that while I can hang on for a long time even relatively happily in a position I don’t like with amazing coworkers, I will quickly be crushed in a position that on paper is incredible but has a handful of difficult people to work with. That 2020 job really was a nirvana where most of the job and most of the people were awesome.
And I learned that even matching can be bad news. Oops. But I’ve learned and grown, and that is the goal of residency, so I guess besides the paper and the money I have succeeded at residency 🙂 go me!!
Topic shift…I’ve been thinking for literally at least a month now about doing some kind of timeline post of my career…
Lol, hours of CE…(from NABP, because ain’t no one got time to figure out where all the actual CE records are, and a lot of them are probably lost if I’m being honest).
2014 – 20 hrs – immunization training…I came home after that and my life fell apart…first I got a new phone and in my exhaustion I was not grateful at all – I was angry about the change. If anything I wanted to pretty new red flip phone. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with a smart phone…and as of last week that phone is gone. I cried. Even though it wasn’t my dad who gave it to me, I’m sure he was incredibly involved, so it feels like another piece gone. And my dad has always set up my new phones and I got a new phone and had to do everything myself. And I really miss my dad, but I needed a new phone, and I didn’t realize until it was too late how hard it was going to be to leave behind my old phone…and then I got an email from someone who was supposed to be helping me but instead chose to systematically tear me down…(clarification, that happened in 2014, not 2022)
2015 – 1hr – lol, on my hospital IPPE they had me do a CE that was about how just because some people are worried about Ebola doesn’t mean we can stop ensuring kids get their flu vaccines. The hospital’s thought was teach these two students that CE is just a normal part of a pharmacist’s day.
2016 – 11.5hr – my first midyear…where I got literally no sleep…but I did go to 5 million networking sessions and apparently 11.5 hours of CE…
2017 – 184.5hr – apparently that lesson in what a pharmacist does stuck…for my first few months of being a pharmacist that summer every time I got bored I did a CE…as you can see, I got bored rather frequently before I found a new way to occupy my time…
2018 – 44.5 hrs – you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I think this was exclusively midyear and a handful of pharmacy grand rounds…I figure with how much midyear costs I’m going to fit as many sessions in as possible, and when you are not a student and therefore do not have to waste time on meeting the school requirements in order to get your $100 professional travel reimbursement, you can fit in both a lot of networking sessions, all the showcases, talking to real people (not that showcase and networking session people aren’t real), and of course quite a bit of CE.
2019 – 90.75hrs – almost all of this was in April. I have no idea why I was doing so much CE in April. It wasn’t like the timing would have worked for my thought process to even be well if they ask me what I’ve learned I’ll be ready, because most if not all were after the match deadline, and I know realistically I wasn’t going to land in a scramble spot even though I always applied for way too many of them…
2020 – 116.75hr – part of this was midyear, but most of it was that a ton of CE was assigned at my place of employment, and I knew if I matched I’d be gone before it was due, but I mean, what else was I going to do while in the airport waiting for flights? And then after I matched I was so close to done I might as well finish…
2021 – 31.08 – 90% of this was actual useful things I *chose* to do…what a novel concept – learning for fun and value instead of just to say I did it…because yes I do have a CE on my record on child abuse in Pennsylvania from a time in my life I was nowhere near Pennsylvania…
2022 – 41.75hrs so far…because now CE has become almost like a game. You scour the internet for the things you want until you find a free one, then you do it and see if the credit is actually free or just the course…
And another timeline…my wellbeing timeline…
A – I started this project shortly after my dad died, and the holidays in particular were hard
B – I was super thrilled to start residency
C – this was the last week of my ED rotation…shortly after my prediction came very close to true that I could not live with what was going on there long term…one of the preceptors was amazing, but the other was very gaslighting.
D – back to the NICU!!!!!
E – shortly after match day when it was becoming more and more clear that I was going into something probably not good…I was able to put it out of mind at times and absolutely love and soak in my last months at my current job.
But then…
F…the new job started and it was worse than I imagined.
G – I had just spent some time with new friends and was close to done with a rotation where I didn’t feel valued enough to make jobs I disliked feel worth it and about to start PICU which I thought was when everything was going to improve (because I was told that was what would happen).
H – three days before my birthday, 1 week after not being employed…I was not doing well and if it hadn’t been for what I learned through C, and the care of some incredible friends, I don’t know how I’d have made it through…but then I started realizing how much better life was not in that job…my wellbeing significantly improved…because of the timing of when I took the quiz you don’t see the drop there would have been on December 13 when they decided to find one more way to retaliate, and it was terrifying…
so yeah, instead of the awesome post I originally wrote you get this one that who even knows why these topics are on my mind…
Y’all, do you ever dissect the truthfulness of songs you’ve loved for decades? Today I was jammin’ to It’s On by Superchic[k]…and they got to the line I used as the title for this post…there are times it might be wisest to stay where you are, but in some situations it doesn’t matter how far you’ve come, it will never be too far to walk away. Perhaps the red flags last spring weren’t enough to make it an obvious decision not having the benefit of hindsight that I now have to walk away when I finally had what I thought was what was going to “fix” my career journey. The longing for the normalcy I thought would boost my confidence overrode that nagging feeling that there were things very wrong…and there were so many things I was excited about that I was totally willing to overlook things, because I am very realistic that no job is perfect and if it really was ‘that bad’ I only had to stay for a year and realistically with the type of position I was interested in staying AND having a position I was happy with might not have been possible anyway…there are a limited number of nicu or even critical care pharmacists in general that any one institution needs regardless of how qualified you may be or how much you want the job…but the point at which I realized the way I was being treated was taking me further from rather than stagnating or getting closer to my goals should have been a moment it didn’t matter how far I’d come – it was time to move on…part of what kept me was the social stigma of quitting and part of it was how deeply invested I become in caring for my patients…I didn’t want caring for my professional future to negatively impact the current and future reality for my patients.
Once I started and it just went from bad to worse, I felt like I’d come too far to just quit. I mean, I’d moved across the country…and I didn’t want to be a quitter…so at the end of the first day I decided on a 6-week trial period…which ended in mid-to-late August which is obviously not a good time for me to make a decision…and a couple weeks later it really seemed like things were starting to stabilize and I’d made it far enough that I felt ready to tackle the rest of the year…and okay, to be honest when people tell me I probably can’t do something it lights a fire in me to prove that I can…so just like when someone told me in high school I was too quiet to successfully be a greeter and while before that moment I’d have been happy to switch serving teams if there were a different need, approaching the conversation that way made me absolutely certain that the only team I was going to be on was the greeting team, and I did fine…so my RPD telling me I wasn’t going to be a good resident because I had experienced grief in the past made it important to me to prove that I could be the best resident they’d ever seen. I stood up for myself when it really mattered, but I didn’t complain when I wasn’t given the breaks I was legally entitled to. I didn’t complain when my preceptor took two months to return my email that I’d continued to follow up on. I didn’t complain when the response to over 40 hours of my work over a holiday weekend was met with no gratitude whatsoever and simply a comment that maybe someone else should have done the work in case I messed it up…y’all, I had taken so long to complete the project because it was important to me that it be 100% complete and accurate…I can absolutely guarantee that it was correct…and in fact in working through it I’d discovered multiple pharmacy errors that had likely been incorrect for a long time including a supplement we had been labeling with the name of a similar but different supplement…but as I learned, people there don’t want to know if there are safety issues and definitely do not want to hear if anyone made a mistake – admitting or drawing attention to that is basically suicide if you’d like to remain employed there…oops…
So yeah, all that to say I should have walked away if not day 1 then at the end of July when I experienced just how awful my manager could be. No one should fear for their physical or emotional safety walking in the door at work. There were so many things that should have been my last straw…and yet I stayed…way too long…I can’t help but wonder if I’d left of my own volition if that would have made things better or worse…I really don’t know…it at least would have given me a head start on finding something better. In retrospect I am so proud of myself for my strength in dealing with that for so long while continuing to treat those making my life miserable with just as much respect as the people I love, but I also am shocked and confused as to why I allowed myself to be treated like that for so long.
And it reminded me that it wasn’t that long ago I was sitting in a PICU workspace watching doc Schmidt videos with a PICU resident…don’t get me wrong, 90% of my time at least in that office was focused on educating the residents and/or consulting on patients, but I’d be lying if I claimed I was always doing that…but to be fair, I think even just hanging out with friends and/or making friends on the unit is valuable for anyone, but even more so for me. Relationship building is important because when you care about your coworkers on a personal level, especially those in different disciplines, it also enables you to have deeper professional collaboration. And for me it is even more important…if we’re being honest, 99.9% of my goals through residency were communication-related…and the one or two that weren’t were really only there because I was supposed to have goals and didn’t know what those goals should be…so any opportunity for me to talk was really a win…also, I have been realizing that while communication is really hard for me that relationship building is one of my strengths. I was looking at the poster my former coworkers gave me in 2020. It was a goodbye poster…but one of the technicians wrote “happy birthday!!!!!” It was one of the newer technicians at the time, and one who wasn’t chemo trained so not one I spent a lot of one on one time with, and yet I had that relationship where those words that might not mean much to anyone else could express exactly the sentiment intended.
Changing gears again, you know what feels really defeating? Receiving mail that you think is going to be a check for $900-$1000…but instead it is a bill for about $1500…I’m hanging on and I’m going to get back on my feet, but when you’ve transferred most of your money out of long term savings (goodbye house fund) and your checking account is still pretty darn close to zero as in you are really hoping your paycheck comes before your credit card payment is due, every bill seems daunting and the hope of relief being dashed just feels like a lot to take in. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me – there are people out there who have it way worse than me, but it is kind of like the kids in Africa principle…just ’cause the kids in Africa don’t have any food doesn’t improve the amount or type of food in front of me. I know how fortunate I am to be the person I am who was ‘saving for college’ by kindergarten, and therefore had some savings to rely on, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to be unable to use my money for what I want to have it for…it’s kind of like how upset I was with myself when I realized I would have qualified in my former apartment for at least 75% off my internet bill and probably for utility assistance if I’d asked, but you can’t get that help retroactively and by the time I figured this stuff out it was too late to apply…
Wanna know one other random thing? So my current conditioner bottle says up to two times more moisturizing…and then there is an asterisk…that asterisk says ‘than shampoo.’ Well, I sure should hope that conditioner is more moisturizing than shampoo…I mean that is basically its job…shampoo helps get the germs out of your hair by emulsifying the water with your hair oils then conditioner helps get the tangles out by moisturizing and smoothing the hair…so like why advertise that?! Lol. The end.
The example that most exemplifies this lyric is someone whose name I am not sure if I ever heard in the first place…someone whom I have only ever spoke with on the phone…
It was a little over a month ago and I was terrified. About 12 hours prior to this moment I had found out someone I had wanted to avoid had been tracking me, and unbeknownst to me had had people following me around taking videos and pictures of me. That most likely wasn’t legal because I think even in one-party consent areas you can’t just take pictures and videos of strangers who have in no way interacted with you…but regardless of legality, it had happened and I was afraid…and I don’t know exactly what my plan was, I just knew my brain said call the police, so I did. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that I would do that because my most recent police contact maybe 8-10 hour prior had consisted of the guy repeating the same useless piece of information I didn’t ask for while I was trying to carry boxes until I finally snapped and more aggressively than I meant to told him that I didn’t care what he was saying and just wanted him to answer my questions which he refused to do. I felt bad about my reaction, but my friend who witnessed my side of the conversation reassured me that I wasn’t rude and it probably felt uncomfortable because it was so far outside my peace-keeping nature…and they’re probably right and I’m sure the police have heard a lot worse than someone taking a strident tone with them, but I still feel like I owe that dude an apology…I don’t know if I was terrified enough that I was willing to give the police another chance or if it was more like that I remembered that all my police interaction prior to that point had been people who seemed to care and that overrode the one big negative…but regardless of reason, I called.
And the person who answered transferred me to someone else and that person really was an angel. I don’t think I ever actually told him what was going on or why I was scared, but he remained calm. Without knowing my story or pressing for my story he offered that if I wanted to come in I could (and I realized at that point that it was around midnight and probably not wise for me to drive anywhere at the moment). I think just the offer that a safe place was there waiting for me was a huge blessing. And when I said I wasn’t ready to drive out there, this kind person asked whether this could wait until morning since most of the night crew was out on some other business, and when I agreed, because at that point I was feeling better, he let me choose what time I wanted them to arrive. And he had the foresight to let me know that if something more urgent came up he couldn’t guarantee that time unless I called and needed someone right away…
And that is the story of how I gave a couple police officers a tour of my apartment complex the next day because they did come and I still wasn’t ready to tell them what was going on, but I didn’t want them to leave because I felt safe and protected with them around. I wanted to ask them to stay and protect me and my social skills kept that from becoming a reality, but touring them around prolonged my contact with them…It didn’t fix anything per se, but it made me feel like I mattered, and it showed me that if I ask for help, someone will come help me…there are a lot of things the police couldn’t do, and they and I both were aware of that, but being there and being willing to do the things they could do was incredibly meaningful. I wish I had gotten everyone’s names, because I would love to send everyone a thank you for their kindness, patience, and for making me feel like there were people who would watch out for me and had my best interest at heart. And I mean, God bless them for not commenting on the cardboard boxes serving as my only piece of furniture and the roll of sheets/pillow/pajamas in the hall that I hadn’t folded up after getting dressed in the morning…it probably wasn’t the most normal-looking place they had seen…hashtag doesn’t everyone have to move a couple boxes of canned goods to un-barricade the door before answering it? And then become unable to find her shoes because the boxes are now on top of the shoes? (yep, I located my shoes after they left and I was feeling safe enough to not need to re-barricade the door and instead wanting to get stuff out of the entry and kitchen to allow for vacuuming and other required cleaning that hadn’t been done in the past week when the kitchen had become the dumping zone for anything that I might need in the next month or so…because sorting things is important, but so is cleaning)
The guy might be thinking he was just doing his job, but to me, he was doing so much more than that, and I wish I could tell him and the team that I spoke with in person how much their compassion and taking a few extra minutes to assist me rather than just taking a not my problem stance meant to me…so I guess if the police officers responding to a young-ish woman who called late at night and proceeded to show them around her apartment complex are reading this (which is highly doubtful) please pass along my thanks to you and your colleagues.
I was going to write about some other angels in my life over the past few months, but I feel like I’ve written about enough other amazing people over the past few months…and I really need to get things done because I haven’t gotten much done at all this week…
But one more thing that I promise is totally at least 3% related if I gave you more details about both this and the previous thing I wrote about…
Ever have those moments when you go, umm, and exactly how was this going to work again?!
So the setting is early August. The background is your girl really wants to have adequate food in her apartment even though she isn’t sure she is going to actually need it. This is basically a continuation of the wiggle worm is not going to be defeated by the grocery store story that I wrote back in August.
So I think in August we got as far as I was buying a watermelon and a few other things…
The problem comes in that even though the store I was at *looked* like a traditional grocery store and had prices like a fancy grocery store, it operated like an Aldi…and I definitely wasn’t about to spend money on something that should be free so I refused a bag…I mean, I did bring my reusable bags just in case I needed them…and except for my backpacks etc which I suppose are technically reusable bags, my reusable bags are super cute, so I’m not overly opposed to using them as needed (two of them are little fishies when folded up, and when in use have an ocean scene, and my other one has a picture of a target store on it which I know doesn’t sound cute, but it totally is). But anyway, I didn’t want to bring the cart all the way home and back because as usual I had a ton of stuff to get done. So my plan was to carry everything. And I quickly realized that while I lived less than a mile from the grocery store, it was a lot longer walk in the heat while carrying a watermelon in addition to other groceries…Plan B was quickly attempted – use the bags to carry the groceries…and Plan B was pretty close to a fail…as it turns out, it was rather difficult to get the watermelon into a bag because the bags are not stretchy like real grocery bags but are sized like regular grocery bags. I finally got the watermelon in and realize that the bag was most definitely not designed to hold the weight of a watermelon so I still had to carry it. The bag did kinda sorta make it an easier surface to hold on to…but yeah, when you are a walker you probably shouldn’t buy watermelon unless you have a well-thought-out plan on how to get it home. And let’s be real, at that point I didn’t have a lot of thought left for my personal life because work was taking so much of my thought.
Hashtag life lessons from wiggle worm…
…totally unrelated, but the leggings I’ve wanted from target since I bought my first pair of leggings years ago, someone was giving away a few pairs of them and it was an hour and a half to get there so probably I should have kept waiting until I could both find and afford them at target, but I wanted them and I’m very determined to make my dreams reality, so now I have two pairs of black fleece lined leggings, two pairs of black and glittery fleece lined leggings (not on my wish list, but I’ve only had glittery clothing one other time in my life, so I figured why not especially since it didn’t seem like the glitter would come off), one pair of navy blue fleece lined leggings, and two pairs I didn’t care as much about – grey and grey with pandas, but they were both fleece lined which will be warm and cozy…I was not a leggings count as pants person until recently, but now I don’t care that I still feel inappropriately dressed, because I’ve discovered how comfortable they are and it is my opinion that if you are going to judge me on looks then I don’t need your opinion…I mean, I’m not going to go outside showing off my bra like some girls do, because I do still have standards (plus, modest really is hottest), but I’m becoming okay with leggings without anything else covering my bottom once in a while…
…and I had one more completely random unrelated thought, but I’m worried it may provide too much information on my whereabouts for a public blog so that though it just going to need to stay in my head…
I did not learn much about phones, planes, and microwaves today…but I did learn some other types of physics. There are a lot of things I know about syringe pumps, but one thing anyone who really knows me knows is that while once in a while I am happy to just admit it is what it is, more often I want to know why, so when I saw a presentation on the physics behind why syringe pumps work the way they do, I was like sign me up! I got like 30 minutes in and lost interest because it started getting repetitive and I was like yep, I get it you can stop repeating yourself, but those first 30 minutes I was like y’know if you made me sit in a room and think about it until I figured it out I would most likely come to the same conclusion in not that much time, but sometimes it is nice to let someone else do the thinking for you…so that was an interesting presentation to watch for the first few minutes. It just could have presented all the information in definitely under 10 minutes and maybe under 5 minutes…
I also watched a ton of other videos because distraction is my super power. One of them said that in the medical profession, sometimes you can’t make it better, so you make it not worse. I thought that was a really insightful way to put it. There are times both in healthcare as well as in life as a whole that you can’t take away the hurt, but there are things you can do to prevent worsening it (although to be fair I think there are times you can’t make it not worse either…humans are not all-powerful nor all-knowing). There are some people this year who have definitely done that for me – striving to make it better if possible but not worse if not possible, and that meant the world to me.
Also, this morning I was in a meeting so I had to get my lazy butt out of bed (okay fine, not lazy, just probably anemic), find somewhere that I both had good internet and phone access AND was somewhere that my location would remain unknown if I had to turn on my camera, and I chose to change out of pajamas…and when it was over I was like why did I do that when I never turned on my camera?? And…ummm…lol…probably because first I didn’t know no one was gonna make me turn on my camera, second because that way when I knocked over a container of Gerber Puffs it meant my pajamas weren’t covered in puff-residue, third because I wasn’t sitting in bed or on clean sheets so my pajamas would have gotten contaminated, and fourth because I needed the pocket on my cargo scrubs for a clean pair of underwear in case of my cup overflowing without time to go look for clean clothes but enough time for a quick bathroom run…
Speaking of anemia, for probably the first time in my life I got blood work that said my hemoglobin was above 13g/dL instead of in the 11-12 range…to be fair, it may have been higher than usual since I’ve both consistently taken high doses of iron supplements daily for the past couple years AND have had a lot more red meat lately AND was about a week pre-menstrual AND hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in the past 19 to 20 hours or so and was therefore also dehydrated…but usually it is low, so go me! On the other hand my platelets were low-ish and I don’t have an explanation for that…a responsible person would probably go get that evaluated, but I’m someone who is afraid of finding something Medicaid won’t cover, so I’m perfectly happy to consider that for one of my babies it wouldn’t be low enough for me to be concerned, so I’m going to just ride with that thought, ‘cause all I know is the normal range I learned in school for adults and not where the point of concern comes in and since I know my blood clots without issue 98% of the time, I’m gonna go with everything is cool and move on…probably not the brightest move from a chica who has spent significant time traveling lately and therefore is at risk of a VTE which could be consuming platelets, but yo’girl may have lost her insurance plan description and therefore doesn’t know whether screening for that would be covered and if there would be any copays or coinsurance associated with it…I’m sure there would be ways to find out, but I’m also semi-sure that a DVT would be significantly painful, and the only debilitating pain I’ve had recently was the blisters on my feet…even my period pain hasn’t completely incapacitated me in the past couple months…which I am very pleased with. Sure, there’s been some painsomnia and some intense pain, but considering I have days not all that irregularly that I physically cannot stand up, am short of breath, nauseous and or vomiting, and close to passing out, I am happy with any time the pain allows me to continue living life as planned…which is probably why the platelet number doesn’t bother me…I know my blood clots because I see the clots, plus when I get cuts, except when they are super deep, they usually stop easily…and I’ve got bigger fish to fry if I was going to have concern for a blood-related topic, like now that I think of it, could it be the fact that before I was primarily a cup-user it was not uncommon for me to need both a super tampon and a super pad to make it break to break in college if I had a class that hit at a heavy point in my cycle that causes my hemoglobin to usually be low?! (of note, our classes traditionally were 50 minutes on then a 10 minute restroom break)…and yes, I am one of the women who has missed work 2/2 female issues, but I have not missed any of my classes…I might have been barely alive, sockless because I was in too much pain to get the socks on and struggling to get to my seat, but I never missed a day of class…and I am proud of that.
And speaking of Gerber Puffs, the fig berry flavor is way better than the cherry orange flavor…also, the containers are a perfect fit for my car’s cup holder for travel, but are not designed well for shoving my hand inside after the first like fourth or third have been consumed…but they are like the perfect texture. I love them.
Sometimes in life, especially as a Christian, you have to be the bigger person…but sometimes you get tired of being like Wiggle Worm, don’t fight this, just be quiet and be the bigger person, ‘cause being the bigger person often feels a lot like slipping into being a doormat, and that is not a good feeling…so in those times I remember the end of the larry-boy songs instead…”I am that HERO!” It might mean the exact same thing, but sometimes the empowerment of doing the right thing being heroic just feels a lot better when I’m feeling powerless in a situation in which someone has been taking advantage of me.
Also, I should prob go to bed soon-ish, but I’ll leave you with this Wiggle Worm-ism…
Because people are moveable objects.
Wiggle Worm – to her community group – describing why she thinks people should be required to have their name tattooed on their face
I could explain that quote further, but I am not sure I could do so without expressing negative opinions of someone I’ve never met, and besides that it isn’t fair to judge people without actually getting to know them and their story, I don’t want to be rude even if I don’t have positive opinions of someone, so we’ll just leave it at this is my idea and the more I think about it, the more I think it might not be a bad idea…I also have a great idea for a new phone app that I would totally download if it existed…but I’m thinking it may be an unlikely app since while it could be really helpful for people like me, in the wrong hands I could see it turning into a tool for bad people, and I’m not quite sure how one would identify who gets the fully featured app and who is not allowed to have the full version…but if that issue could be overcome I think we probably have all of the necessary technology to make it work if someone designed it…or at least based on how I think technology works based on TV shows and other apps I think we have the needed tech…I can’t say I actually have personal knowledge on the subject…
Am I ready is a hard question. It has been about 5 and a half months since I walked through a door Monday morning to a team excited to see me. Yes, my coresidents and coworkers were happy to see me for a few months of that gap, but y’all a manager who didn’t want you and isn’t afraid to tell you that is not a good place to walk into. So from that perspective I am ready to start 5 and a half months ago. It’s like the Crowder song ‘in the house.’ “Somebody who loves you is waiting at the door; it’s home sweet home here.” That is what is most important to me in a job. Having a supportive team around me that is happy to see me and wants me to be present.
It is hard to be not wanted, but it is also hard in a different way to be very wanted. I wish I had a bunch of body doubles so I could try out all the jobs and decide which one was really the best…preferably a bunch of body doubles that do not require housing, because I can’t afford to house multiple people. Just housing myself is more than enough. I am so thankful that I am wanted though…and it is incredible how I can meet someone for only a 30 minute conversation and have that person emailing me a month later that someone she knows is hiring for a position that she thinks I’d like and she passed on my information and the manager for that position would really like to chat with me and most likely would offer the position…and what makes that even better is that this person clearly wasn’t just pawning off this stranger who was in the market for a new job onto the first opening she came across, but had truly considered whether that position would be a good fit for me…I would have accepted if I didn’t already have enough other places interested in me that it was time to stop adding more potential positions to the mix…pharmacy really is a small world, and that just goes to show you how definitely not all, but a lot of us really care about each other. My happy place is caring for neonates and teaching, so your perfect fit might not be right next to mine if your niche is different, but even if we can’t be coworkers, I still want to help the people I come across find something good for them…and I found last year that because my path had some off-road adventures, I’ve got a lot of good perspective to share with students as they begin thinking about what is important to them in their career. Someday I would love to harness that in one of the motivational talks at midyear, because hearing from someone whose path wasn’t exactly as planned and as expected is something that would have really benefitted me as a student and a new practitioner…unfortunately, my fear of speaking in large groups makes that dream something that might not be a good reality for me…plus if midyear doesn’t stay virtual there is the whole is the awesome opportunities to mentor students worth the stress of traveling to midyear thing…non-in-person midyear is awful because you don’t get those mentoring opportunities, but it is also awesome because you can do the conference without leaving home. If we could figure out how to merge those two worlds, like bringing the conference to a city near me, for example, I would be absolutely thrilled to attend!! I think ASHP should work on better mobility for their conference so that everyone gets a turn having it in their part of the country.
That housing question is also an interesting are you ready…Recently I found another place that looks like my dream new apartment…this time based on what it looks like balanced with the price, not *just* based on the title of the building. This time instead of the problem being that the complex is incredibly rundown, the problem is that the next expected availability isn’t until mid-to-late 2023. I don’t necessarily need to move anywhere immediately, but I do need to move before 2023…plus this newest dream new apartment is actually located in a state I would like to live in, which is a significant improvement over the other dream apartment I found…lol…but I mean, I kind of am ready…I have a few Airbnb wish lists…and there are always hotels…and if it were less cold than it is today I am not opposed to sleeping in my car if I found a safe and legal place to do so and also knew of a place to shower…so I guess like a campground with good security…I mean, last Monday I was in my car a good 18 hours or so and having to be in position to drive that long feels like forever, but laying down to sleep would be much better…just not if my toes and fingers were going to freeze without the heat on…
Part of getting ready last night I decided was pealing the dead skin off my feet from when they blistered on December 2…so most of the layers of skin and dried blood from the bottoms of my feet are gone…except eventually I was smart enough to realize that some of the skin was not ready to come off, and also that I wasn’t quite sure why getting ready to possibly stay in an Airbnb required my blisters to be picked off…
Also, on a totally different note, if you want to be ready for anything, making sure your favorite clothes make it into the wash is important…my laundry has been done twice in the past two-ish weeks which should be more than enough except both times a few preferred clothing items failed to make it to the wash…also, I don’t know why I bother owning more than one pair each of leggings, jeans, scrub bottoms, and dress pants…I tend to wash and wear and wash and wear the same ones over and over…(I do actually know why though – fear of not having enough when I need something)…and I thought I needed lots of tops, but after like 3.5 months of wearing the same handful of t-shirts every day, and living the past month with only two interview dresses, one interview tank top, one non-interview tank top, one sweater, and two jackets for dress and church clothes makes me feel like even when I go back to work I could be totally fine with significantly fewer clothes…I don’t actually need to own enough clothes to go two months without doing any laundry…hashtag I wouldn’t be surprised if I could go 3-4 months without doing laundry except that I would probably run out of bras and possibly socks too soon…
Wanna know someone else who wasn’t ready? The lady who gave birth to a 29-weeker in an airplane bathroom back in like May without knowing she was pregnant until suddenly there was a baby…I was curious today how they kept the baby alive to get to the hospital and I couldn’t find all the details I was hoping for even after spending way too many hours “researching” it by reading every story I could get my hands on, but a lot of it was really creative ideas – microwaved waterbottles for heat, a sock for a hat, modifying an oxygen mask…so yeah…that would have been an eventful flight and that baby is so lucky to be alive! The human body is incredible.
A journey through trauma & triumph 