Brooke's Adventure in Prescott

Here's a very friendly and cute horse in someone's yard overlooking Granite Mountain. You can't see it very well in the photo, but he/she has a very fuzzy and colorful mane.

Here I am with my first preceptor, Greg. The pharmacy he runs is sort of like a Walgreens, but it's just for hospital employees, volunteers, and their families. I don't know if it's because we think the same way, or we're both pretty agreeable, but we clicked pretty much immediately. Together with Cindy the technician, we'd work busily until the afternoon, then she'd leave around 3:30 or 4, things would slow down, and Greg and I would often chat for the rest of the day, until closing time at 5.

He has tons of hilarious stories about everything from trick-or-treating with his brothers many years ago, to his special way of washing skunk smell off his dogs, and I loved hearing them. Around the second week, he also started telling me other, more serious stories about his past, his wife and kids, etc. Some of them were absolutely heartbreaking, and I felt honored that he felt comfortable enough to tell me all that heavy stuff. I told him many stories too, although I think his favorite subject was my grandpa and his "inventive and entertaining" solutions to everyday problems (one of these days I'll start a page on that topic)... There were also many funny things that happened while I was up there - I should start a page about that too... There were many times when I'd be laughing so hard there were tears rolling down my face, and a few times when I even had to answer the phone mid-laughing fit, and the person on the other end of the line would be somewhere between confused and amused. Don't get me wrong - we all worked hard, but we had a lot of fun while we were doing it. Personally, I think that's the best way to do it!

I will say that there were some whispers from a few hospital employees that Greg has occasional total flip-outs. For example, there was a dent in the counter at the prescription-filling station, and I was semi-jokingly told that it probably came from Greg bashing the phone during a fit. However, the most extreme flip-outs I ever witnessed were a few brief vocal outbursts that lasted approximately 3 seconds each, and that were caused by the phone ringing constantly. Comparing with my family's get-togethers alone, these are NOT flip-outs. Considering the classy, calm, and kind way he conducted himself the WHOLE time, he should be able to flip out once in a while, and furthermore, after all the buildup, I sort of WANTED to witness one!

Probably the most stern I saw him get was when he was chewing out a patient's doctor for not monitoring the progress of the patient's infection and not even having a record of the patient's height and weight. He let the doctor know in a very serious but very professional way that SOMEBODY needed to take responsibility for this person. It was very classy, and the patient might have died if he hadn't done it.

Every Wednesday morning around 7, he'd pick me up and we'd go to a hospice committee meeting at the hospital in the neighboring town. I've never seen such a collection of caring people, and I loved having the chance to learn about their perspectives.

While I was there, he was in the midst of his reign as hospital employee of the year (they actually made him wear a plastic crown at the ceremony), and I'm pretty sure he was also U of A's preceptor of the year. Personally, I think he's one of the kindest, most caring and giving people I've ever known; I won't go into detail, but now I often stop and think of what he might do in certain situations I find myself in, and definitely in Ethics and Management classes. My management teacher was Greg's preceptor when he was back in school, and after I got back from rotations, I told him how I'd had a fantastic preceptor who was employee of the year and U of A's preceptor of the year. He asked who it was, and I told him Greg's name, and he immediately knowingly nodded like it was no surprise.

Here I am with Mary, another pharmacist who would fill-in when Greg was on vacation (he has every other Friday off - lucky!) or at hospice meetings. She was also super-nice and quizzed me a lot on pharmacy math, which sure helped a lot.  :o)

I don't have a picture, but I also met Greg's dad Darrell (sp?) one day when he filled-in (Mary wasn't available). He was also very nice, and considering all the stories Greg had told me about him, it was an honor to meet him.

That brings me to Cindy (on the right in the above picture)! She has to be the kindest, most professional technician I've ever met, and in general, one of the most welcoming and humorous people I've met in a long time. Both she and Greg answered any and all questions I had, helped me over and over until I got the hang of the computer system, and basically dropped everything when I needed help, which I didn't expect but really appreciated. One thing in particular I admired about her is that she knew all the patients' names and would greet them when they came to the window, regardless of whether she was in the middle of something (besides a phone conversation of course).

She also has an adorable daughter who would sit in the pharmacy waiting room most days after she got out of school, until Cindy left at 3:30 or 4. Greg would spend a lot of time talking to her, and convincing her of things like when you take cupcakes in for all your classmates, you have to also take in special ones for everyone's pets, etc.

Speaking of kids, here's a hilarious story... One day, one of Greg's sons dropped by after school to wait for his ride to hockey practice. He had to change into his uniform in the waiting room, and Greg warned Cindy and I that the uniform tends to be a bit smelly because of the gym bag he keeps it in. While he was changing, I was in the back of the pharmacy, away from the waiting room, busy sorting or filling something-or-other. However, when his son came out, they started yelling and laughing that the stench was permeating the hallway. Maybe 30 seconds later, we heard people down the hall screaming, but lucky me, I was in the back and couldn't really smell it. So many people started yelling that Greg got out the air freshener, burst out the door, and ran up and down the hallway spraying and laughing his head off - by that time, we were all pretty hysterical. Long story short, his son had to go sit outside, and we could see him through the little window in the door at the end of the hall. The whole thing was so sad yet so funny!!!

Each rotation was only five weeks long, so after the first five weeks, I moved to the other pharmacy in the hospital. I was so sad to leave Greg, Cindy, and Mary that I jokingly told him that they should be really mean to me my last week so I wouldn't be so sad to go! So he kept reminding Cindy to slap me on the back of the head, etc.  ;o)  

The second pharmacy served patients staying in the hospital, so they'd dispense things like IVs instead of bottles of pills. I must admit that even though I loved it, I loved my first rotation even more, although I think a lot of that had to do with Greg, Cindy, and Mary, and how much I grew to like them. I made an arrangement with my second preceptor to keep going to hospice meetings with Greg on Wednesday mornings. On this rotation, I was also joined by one of my classmates, Lindsey. It was really nice to have some company at the apartment and the site! I invited her to go to the meeting with Greg and I, and she accepted. So that Wednesday, we all piled into his truck and they started talking on the 20-minute or so drive. Lindsey is definitely a city girl, and was having a lot of trouble adjusting to being in a small town the first week and a half. So when he asked her how she liked Prescott, she started saying she didn't like it, didn't know why anybody would want to live there, and that everyone had mullets. He looked sort of shocked and said "None of my friends have mullets..." I was also shocked and started saying I hadn't seen anybody with mullets (I really hadn't!), and she started arguing, so I finally asked her what it even mattered if somebody had one or not. Long story short, I don't think it gave a very good first impression.

So we finally got to the meeting. They always had a big square of tables set up, and there were NEVER enough chairs in the room, so Greg would always run and get more from the break-room, and have me sit next to him so he could answer questions or explain things to me if necessary. On this day, I went to the other side of the room to help move chairs, and figured I'd sit over there because there was more room, and only one empty chair by where he usually sits. So as I was helping, I glanced up, and he had literally crammed Lindsey into the corner of the room, and was beckoning and yelling "Brooke! Come sit by me!!!" Poor Lindsey, although he later moved her to a seat next to a doctor friend of his.

In the course of the second rotation, Lindsey and I met a U of A medical student who had replaced my first roommate, Holly. His name was Scott, and he seemed really nice at first, but then started coming over to our apartment uninvited around 9pm a few nights a week. He'd sort of barge in, tell us what channel to put the TV on, and then if we tried to talk, he'd shush us! He also would ask Lindsey really weird questions, like how often she gets her period, how severe it is, etc. I know he's a medical student, but geez! The picture above is Lindsey and Scott one night when he was making us watch one of the World Series games. I was at the dining table with his roommate Ted, doing stuff on my computer and being sassy when Scott would do something irritating. (This was after a few weeks of being harrassed by him - it's not like I'm sassy to people right off the bat...)

Speaking of baseball, I also got to see a Diamondbacks-Brewers game on TV while I was up there!!! (My favorite player, Craig Counsell, got traded to the Brewers mid-season, but recently was bought back by the Diamondbacks - yay!!!!!)



Not surprisingly, during my second rotation, we'd be done for the day around 3:30 or 4, so I would often sneak up to Greg's pharmacy afterwards and help out / chat. Also, whenever he'd need something to be compounded (when a medicine like an ointment, suppository, or IV item is made from scratch from various powders, liquids, etc), he'd call downstairs and ask for me. The picture of us near the top of the page was taken on an interesting day...

My second preceptor Dave set it up for me to watch a colonoscopy first thing in the morning, on my second-to-last day at the hospital. It was cold outside that day, so I was dressed very warmly, plus I had my white pharmacists' coat on. When I went up to the GI lab, they just grabbed me, put a surgeon's gown over my clothes and shoved me into a room where a colonoscopy was in process. It was almost over, so I just saw the end. Then the doctor came in who I was supposed to watch, so I went in another room with him. First of all, these rooms were like dark little dungeons - they had tile walls that were sort of a slimy blue color, and most of the lights were kept off so the doctor could see the monitor better. It was pretty hot in the second room, and the patient hadn't used their bowel prep kit properly, so there was lots of "stuff" still in their intestines. I kept getting hotter and hotter, until finally I calmly told the nurse I was getting a little hot and had to step outside. ~Understatement~...

I walked out the door, sat at another nurse's desk, and loosened my jackets to help myself cool off. The nurse came over and started freaking out - he decided to take me to the employee lounge and lay me on the couch. Never mind I was now so dizzy I could hardly stand up... He grabbed my elbow and quickly dragged me down a hallway - I was sort of clawing at the walls to keep myself from falling down. He then put me on the couch and left. I could hear a weird high-pitched noise but wasn't sure if it was inside my head or not!...

It was probably the closest I've ever beeen to fainting without ACTUALLY doing so. Eventually, I was able to sit up and then stand. I'm a very determined person, and wanted to make it all the way through a procedure. So I changed into some scrubs, got a drink of water, and went back to the room.

This time the doctor and nurse were a bit concerned, and told me to sit down in the room if I got light-headed. I had no intention of doing that, however, because I didn't want to be disruptive and look like a sissy in front of them all. The second procedure was pretty much like the first one, except there were gases escaping from this lady's bowels as he was moving the scope around. The addition of an unpleasant odor made it remarkably worse. I was standing sort of behind the doctor, so whenever I'd feel faint, I'd look at the back of his head instead of the monitor. By some miracle, I made it through this procedure although I felt HORRIBLE...

The doctor was like, "She made it! She's a veteran!" and started telling me about the last girl who watched him, and how she actually DID faint, and they heard her skull hit the floor and everything. The doctor then left, and the nurse came over and asked "Any questions?" I calmly put my finger up, whispered "Just a minute!" hurried out the doors, sat down, and once again the high-pitched noise and clammy feeling came back!

As soon as I could, I got up, thanked the doctor again for letting me watch, and wandered down the hall to Greg's pharmacy. When I get sickly-feeling, my face turns ghostly whitish-gray, so when I walked up, they were immediately like, "Are you ok?!?!" I told them what happened, and Greg started laughing hysterically, though not in a mean way. Cindy started telling me how she accidentally got on the elevator earlier in the day with a corpse on its way to the morgue, and I guess I started looking sicker, because Greg grabbed my arm and was like "Are you ok?!?!" I weakly shook my head, and he got all worried and sat me down in the waiting room. He started panicking and was like, "Do you want some crackers and juice??? We have some in the breakroom! I can go get some!!" I said ok, and he ran off. He came back still in panic mode and was like, "Here are some crackers. I brought you apple juice, but we also have orange - I can go get orange - would you rather have orange? Because I can go get it---" Meanwhile, I'm a few seconds away from passing out, and really do prefer apple juice, so I said that was fine, and went to take it from him, and still in panic mode, he was like "Wait! Let me open it for you!!!" and then set it down and painstakingly peeled back the foil on top. He made sure I was ok, then said to call him if I needed anything and went back into the pharmacy. All this while, there was a poor innocent lady also in the waiting room, reading a book - she just kept intermittently peeking at us over the top of it with a frightened look on her face!...

So I sat and drank my juice and slowly ate the graham crackers. The pharmacy window was right across from where I was sitting, so Greg kept dashing to it to check on me. I felt so silly I'd start laughing when he'd do so, and then he'd start laughing too. Eventually, I finished the crackers and juice and felt well enough to go back downstairs. Then at the end of the day, I went back up to help out, and that's when we took the above photo. This was the last day we saw each other, though we still talk on the phone intermittently.

Overall, I loved the experience and think about it every day. Needless to say, I miss Greg, Cindy, Mary, and everybody else to an incredible degree. However, I'm scheduled to go back in summer 2006, so I can't WAIT! This is the last rotation before we all graduate, and I feel a little ripped off because due to this fact, I'm only going to be up there for 4 weeks instead of 5. (HMPH!!!) Anyway, I'd really like to move up there someday. (One of my best friends and classmates John is also seriously thinking of moving up there, so even better!) Almost every day of my first rotation, I'd walk the two and a half miles back to the apartment, and the above picture is one of my favorite parts of the walk. There's a mountain pass, and as you come out of it, you can see the southern part of the town and all the trees and it was (and is) so pretty!

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Last updated: 29 June 2005
Created: 28 December 2004