Emotionally Unstable

Hello Blog –

It’s me again. I know that its been a while since I came here but what matters is that I am here right? You guessed it, and you’re right. It seems that I only post something when good things are happening or whenever I’m doubting myself. I’m sorry that I use you as my personal therapist but sometimes I feel that this is the only way I can really express myself. I have made countless excuses for not blogging and my favorite one is “I am so busy that I don’t have time” but that is truly not the case this time. The opposite is true this go around. I have had sooo much free time that I have been going crazy………no better yet stir crazy to be more exact.

It has been roughly 5 months since graduation and I am still unemployed! The situation with opening my own pharmacy has be peppered with road blocks, delays, and unforeseen expenses. These things have resulted in an increase level of stress and play a big role in my current state of emotional instability. I knew it was not going to be easy but I didn’t know that it was going to be this trying on me. Everyday I feel worn down and the possibility of having a mental breakdown increases with every obstacle that I encounter. Sometimes I feel helpless and not in control of what is happening. The worst part of it all is that I am dragging my wife with me and she becomes the victim of my frustration. It is not easy living with a mopey, angry, frustrated, semi Type A person. I can attest personally and acknowledge to that.

This personal feeling of losing control over my profession career is the pits. There was a period, a couple of months ago, that I felt that I have hit rock bottom. Both myself and my wife were unemployed, our savings were being drain to make ends meet, and we didn’t know if something would come along to provide one of us employment. Lucky for us, my wife got a job and it was enough to get us by until things resolved with the pharmacy building. That was one of the most happiest days of my life. Things were starting to turn up for us.

While she worked, I was left to take care of the apartment. There was really nothing I could do with the pharmacy until this current issue resolved itself which would just take time. I cooked, I cleaned, I was a stay at home husband. In the beginning it was fine and I enjoyed it. I was able to sleep in, watch multiple t.v. series on Netflix and just plain old relax. After the first week, that routine got mundane and boring and I began to really question my own self worth. I went to pharmacy school to help patients and right now I’m stuck at home trying to figure out what to make for dinner! The only thing that I had to look forward to was deciding what I was going to make the following day. I hated doing the dishes everyday. My wife would leave at 7 am and not really come home until 6pm from school. We would then have dinner and I would have to listen to her talk about her day and her daily frustration/learning curve as a new teacher. Afterwards she would correct her students homework until it was bedtime. This was the standard routine and currently I am not adjusting to it well. I am trying to be as supportive as I can but I am missing sometime here. I think it would be easier on myself if I had something meaningful also in my routine instead of the crappy homebody routine.

It did get better. I was able to find some work for a couple of weeks. I was so happy for the opportunity to make a contribution to our situation and to actually work as a pharmacist. When I was working, it felt awesome. I was helping patients, learning how to be a pharmacist, and gaining confidence in my ability to open and run my pharmacy when things came together. I really felt needed and personally satisfied. The work didn’t last long. In no time I was back in Lake Crystal and resuming my role as the stay at home husband feeling really worthless in terms of helping out and contributing to my family. The day that I received my first check was really bittersweet. It was great that I was compensated nicely for my work but it also meant that I was losing out on that future income as I wait issues to be revolved with my pharmacy. Lately I have notice myself being more easily annoyed, upset, and frustrated. I below up because I wasn’t getting help “planning meals” during one of our conversations. Last night, after going grocery shopping and having dinner out (due to me not wanted to cook) I lost it again. We were putting away the groceries and I made a comment (directed to myself) that I should really look at what we have at home and use those items for our meals. My wife quickly agreed with that statement and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I really put in effort in my dinners and try really hard to be creative but lately I have not been getting any assistance with the household chores. To make matters worst, she went into school this morning to work on things and didn’t come back until 4pm. I was stuck here at home again going stir crazy and still upset about what had transpire last night.

At this point, I don’t know what to do. I thought that if I “spew” my feelings in this blog, things will be better tomorrow. I’ll hopefully have cooled down and became more emotionally stable? I do feel a little better now that I have vented. Thank you for listening to me and being a place where I can be myself. I know that you will always be here for me and I should come here more frequently. Goodbye Blog. I will see you the next time I have a life changing situation to talk about!

Gratefully,

Souk

 

Hard working Pharmacy Intern looking for an Internship :-(

This economy is not very kind to inspiring Pharmacy Interns! I’m not sure if it is really the economy or just the Duluth area. The Duluth area is so saturated with us that it is hard to fine a job as an intern. In order to get a job, you have to know someone. They say that pharmacy is a small world and it is true to a certain extent. Here in Duluth, there are two groups of pharmacists. The ones that work in a Health system like Essentia or St. Lukes and then there are the community pharmacists like the ones that work at Wal-greens, Target, ShopKo, etc. My problem is that I only know those that work in the hospital setting. Being a second year pharmacy student also doesn’t help you. You would naturally think that employers would want someone who is knowledgeable but it seem to me that employers would choose a 1st year pharmacy student over a 2nd year student because they will be around the following year. In my opinion this is the case of someone trying to break into the business by applying for an entry-level that requires prior experience. I never totally understood the “prior experience required” for an entry-level position in that profession.

 

 

Memory Up Grade

It finally got here! I have been tracking my package for 4 days now and I was starting to wonder if I would receive it before class started. Without it I don’t know how I would be able to start classes. Well without it working that is.

Four days ago, I ordered a memory upgrade for my netbook off of Amazon.  Since then my netbook has been in pieces because I had taken it apart to see have difficult it would be to do a memory upgrade. After taking it apart, I didn’t want to put it back together because of how difficult it was to disassemble in the first place. I had all the components “bagged and tagged” just so I wouldn’t lose them.

My netbook is pretty much my life. It contains everything relating to my pharmacy career since I started. All of my notes, documents for all of my organizations that I’m involved in, and all of my pictures. I love my netbook because it was light and portable. It has a 10″ screen and weighs less than 3lbs. I would carry it with me everywhere I went. It was the perfect size to have in the classroom and did everything a normal laptop can do. The negatives about my netbook was it was VERY slow. I always considered myself knowledgeable when it comes to technology but  when I bought my netbook, I didn’t do such a good job researching. My Acer Aspire One is a great little computer. It came with Windows 7 starter, an Intel Atom N475 processor, 6 cell battery, 250 GB of hard drive, and 1 GB of memory. This was top of the line for netbooks at that time. Well just to let you know, 1 GB of memory is not enough to watch lectures on Itunes, use Word, and check email at the same time. I was doing so much at once that my computer would “freeze up” on me every 2 sec. After surfing the internet, I found out that I couldn’t upgrade the memory on the model. I had given up on my Acer until a week ago. That is when I stumbled across Aliamentation’s Youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ttWH_DwUI&feature=related. She did a great step by step video on how to upgrade the memory. She figured out how to get it to work by using a certain brand of memory. Well I found it at Amazon and ordered it. I have to tell you, for $13 I couldn’t be happier. I doubled my memory from 1 GB to 2 GB and my Acer is running faster than before. I almost sold it to a friend of mine over the Christmas break but lucky for me, I procrastinated on wiping/backing up  the hard drive. That was the one thing the prevented me from selling it when I was home. I don’t know if you even follow my blog by this entry is dedicated to you Aliamentation. Without your DIY video, I would have been in the market for a new computer. Hopefully this upgrade is all I need to get me through the rest of my studies. I have my eye on a MacBook Air but that will have to wait until after I become a Pharmacist and can afford such luxuries.

 

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Trying out a new feature …Polling

Hi everyone,

I’m trying this polling feature out to see if this works. Let me know what you think by answering the sample poll.

 

The light at the end of the tunnel

Just finished up my last exam before Finals week. Our first final is in Pharmacokinetics and it is only hours away. It is tomorrow at 1pm!Can’t believe it, we just got done taking an exam. I sometimes feel like they want to see how much we can take lol. So here is the lowdown for the rest of the week. First final is Saturday then we have one each day until Thursday. After that, a six-hour drive home to spend some time with family and a couple of well deserved beers. My goal tonight is to be productive until maybe 10 pm and then get some much-needed sleep. It is bad when people can see dark bags under your eyes when you are dark-skinned. I keep on telling myself that I just need to get through week.

 

Atorvastatin substituted for Viagra? 10.7.11

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Just got back from the MSHP meeting and would like to share some wisdom I learn from tonight’s speaker, Dr. Mullvain. Approximately 40-50% of people stop taking their statin medication after two years. Men who stop taking statins are foolish and should think HARD about reconsidering. Yes that was a pun, read more to find out why. Statins not only help lower your cholesterol but has been shown to provide some of the same effects as sildenafil aka Viagra®! Not only is this medication helping you take care of your health, but this medication also may help you take care of business! So keep that in mine if your significant other complains about taking their cholesterol medication ladies. Don’t believe me? Here is my source. You always have to have a source (see below). Can you say extended patent for Lipitor® due to a new indication? I think we might have something here.

ABSTRACT

Background.  Erectile dysfunction (ED) may be one manifestation of a generalized vascular disorder characterized by endothelial dysfunction. Statin drugs may improve endothelial function, even before altering the lipid profile.

Objective.  We sought to determine whether the addition of a statin with sildenafil would improve ED in men who initially responded poorly to sildenafil.

Methods.  Men with moderate-to-severe ED despite an adequate sildenafil trial were enrolled in this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study. ED was defined using a validated self-administered questionnaire as a score of ≤16 on the International Index of Erectile Function (erectile function domain score range of 6–30). Improvement in ED score with sildenafil was reassessed at 6 and 12 weeks of treatment with atorvastatin (80 mg daily) or matching placebo.

Results.  Twelve men (mean age 58 ± 13 years) with a mean domain score of 8.2 ± 6.9 and a mean duration of ED of 3.7 years were enrolled in the study. Treatment with atorvastatin decreased mean low-density lipoprotein cholesterol by 43% and resulted in an improvement with sildenafil in domain score of 7.8 (P = 0.036); an effect was apparent by 6 weeks. The increase in domain score in placebo patients was not statistically significant.

Conclusions.  Treatment with atorvastatin improved sexual function and the response to oral sildenafil in men who did not initially respond to treatment with sildenafil. The results of this pilot study support the hypothesis that vascular endothelial dysfunction contributes to ED in sildenafil nonresponders and deserves further testing in a large clinical trial. Herrmann HC, Levine LA, Macaluso J Jr, Walsh M, Bradbury D, Schwartz S, Mohler ER III, and Kimmel SE. Can atorvastatin improve the response to sildenafil in men with erectile dysfunction not initially responsive to sildenafil? Hypothesis and pilot trial results. J Sex Med 2006;3:303–308.

I hope that his provided a smile to those that read this little blurb.