Football!

Since my last post, the National Football League has returned to action. And the Bears are 2-0. Also, Carlos Gonzalez is the latest to fall victim to the Buffalo Pharmer curse (see also: the MLB.com survivor contest, Monday blog entries, the 2009 Chicago Bears, P1 class president, the Chicago Cubs as a franchise) . He hasn't hit a home run since I wrote the MVP article, and the triple crown looks like it won't happen this year. In fact, Troy Tulowitzki looks more like the MVP candidate than CarGo right now. Whatever.

A classmate of mine sent me a link to this article, in case I needed something to blog about. At first I thought, no thanks, I don't want to write about that. Then I remembered that I take requests, so I thought I'd chip in my two cents. The article admonishes Derek Jeter for acting hurt after a pitch hit the butt of his bat. The basic idea is that while this sort of thing happens all the time in baseball, it's not typical for Derek Jeter to behave like anything but a model citizen. I guess I agree with that, but I sort of don't care. A lot of stuff goes on in baseball that isn't really the most honorable. Pitchers throw at hitters. Players apply phantom tags, and get away with it. Matt Holliday slides right past home plate and the Rockies go to the World Series. This writer seems to be making a big deal out of nothing and, rather than showing Jeter to be a cheater, I think he shows the opposite. If this is the biggest thing we can get on Jeter, how much can we really say about him? A ball came close to hitting him, and he hammed it up enough to get first base. Chances are his reaction to the pitch had nothing to do with the call. My guess is the ump thought it actually hit him on the hand, and logically awarded him the base. I don't think major league umpires are in the business of making calls based on the player's reaction, for the most part. Also, all the bad calls and missed plays average out over the course of the season. I'm sure at some point, the Yankees lost a close call, probably even a wrong call, and ended up losing the game. So Jeter overreacts and ends up scoring and winning the game. Let's move on.

Anyway, since you asked, that's what I feel about it. Keep your requests coming! For my next entry, I'm going to talk about something I totally haven't mentioned this year, which is school. Isn't that a novel topic for my pharmacy school blog? Thanks for stopping by.

Back to school

Well, classes began Monday. Sorry there were no posts the last couple weeks; I was enjoying the end of my summer. I'm looking for a regular day to blog during the school year; it might end up being Wednesday afternoons. Might not. Stay tuned.

So, I received this request several weeks ago from Sams:
"Here's a request! The Prince has another set of ear infections, and trying to get him to take his antibiotics is challenging, to say the least. Any tips, or will you promise to work on a better way to get babies to take medicine when you're a famous pharmacist?"

I asked one of the pharmacists at Kaiser, and basically, the answer is no. I'm assuming you're referring to ear drops (not oral antibiotics), and it's never going to be easy. It should be easier than eye drops, because at the very least you can hold his head still while you drop the medicine in his ear. Eye drops are an absolute nightmare, even for adults, and can be almost impossible with an infant. On the other hand, if it's an oral medication, it shouldn't be extremely difficult. The key is to be quick and direct. Get the syringe into his mouth and put it up against the inside of his cheek. Then empty into his mouth, and he should naturally swallow it. He won't like it, and you might have to keep surprising him with it to prevent him from closing his mouth at the sight of the medicine, but it should help. Also, depending on the medication, it can actually be mixed in milk or formula. Diluted like that, he won't really taste the medicine, and it won't look any different from his normal bottle. You can't always do this, so ask your pharmacist about the specific medication before you do this. And that brings me to another good point: a disclaimer.

I'm not a pharmacist (yet). Even if I were, this blog is not designed or intended to give medical advice of any kind. Without knowing the specifics of your situation, I can't recommend a product or course of medication to you, and nothing I write here should be considered as such. I'm simply relating things I've heard, seen, or read about, not trying to be some kind of Internet pharmacist. You should always check with a real pharmacist if you have a question, and never change your medications or the way you take them without consulting your doctor or pharmacist.

My wife is six months (or so) pregnant. I can feel the baby kicking now, which is great. Sadly, she's not been in the best of health lately. Her doctor really thought she had gall bladder disease, since she had every symptom thereof, but after an ultrasound of her gall bladder, that seems not to be the case. So it's a medical mystery. And then her blood glucose came back high, but that turned out not to be gestational diabetes. I hope they can figure out what's going on (and hopefully it's just "normal" pregnancy symptoms), and I'm really grateful that she gets to keep her gall bladder.


The best news of all is that it looks like I'm going to be able to manage this course load well enough to get ahead a little bit before the baby comes. I don't think I'm going to get to many classes in the first two weeks of December. Also, if you're in Denver and want to help out with a 2-year-old and various around-the-house chores while Jaime recovers from a C-section, we would never say no.


That should do it for today. I'm sure to have plenty on my mind as the semester gets going. The second year looks like it's going to be extremely challenging but also extremely interesting. Thanks for stopping by.

Now accepting requests

First of all, the L key on my computer isn't working very well, so if I leave one out, pease forgive me.

Second of all, I've decided to take requests. In the summer, I have time to really craft my blog entries, so I want to open it up a little bit. I want suggestions for future topics. Leave a comment after this or any other entry with what you'd like me to write about. They can be pharmacy related, but they don't have to be. I'd love to give my opinion on hot button issues like gay marriage or health care reform, and I'd be happy to devote an entire entry to NBA free agency or Coke vs. Pepsi, if that's what you want to hear. Get creative. Get inquisitive. I'll try to honor as many requests as I can, based on how much I like the suggestions I get. Let's see how this goes. Hopefully it won't be too terrible.

No real news in my life, other than that I love my son. Yesterday when I got home from Kaiser, after not seeing him for two days, he proclaimed, "Hello, daddy!" and then ran across the living room into my arms. It was pretty darned cute.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks in advance for leaving your requests.