Block 7, Week 1: Arapahoe Clinic and Exploring Lander and Riverton

The first week of clinic, we were greeted warmly by Katherine and the rest of the Arapahoe group. They had a ton of great recommendations for things to see and places to eat around the area. While we are unable to see patients face-to-face due to COVID, minus administering vaccines, we were able to do several tasks around the pharmacy. We were able to input OTC orders and verify existing refills, this is something neither of us had been able to do before, so we felt like actual practicing pharmacists. The clinics are in the middle of a COVID-19 booster campaign, so we spent a large majority of our time calling patients and gauging interest in getting their vaccines. Most of the patients actually answered the phone and were very pleasant to speak to, something that does not happen as much down South. 

The rest of the time in clinic, we worked up patients and completed med recs while getting more familiar with the pharmacy. At the end of our first day, we got the opportunity to try out Freestyle Libre continuous blood glucose monitors on ourselves before heading home to meet our 2 new pharmacy student roommates from Tennessee! The Libre turned out to be an interesting experience where we were able to keep a close eye on our blood sugar trends throughout the day. We also got to see how the different foods we ate affected our blood sugar spikes and how our numbers would get low when we did not eat for a period of time. Every day on the way to clinic, we got to see the most beautiful sunrises. Three days into our rotation, snow hit. We were driving like grandmas with sweet tea sitting on the dashboard on the way to church ~ slowly. Luckily, by the time we met up with our Tennessee counterparts for a long but delicious lunch at Riverton's premiere Thai restaurant, the roads were already being cleared. 




Our first Friday of the rotation, we took off for lunch to go visit Lander. We ate a great lunch at Gannett Grill and visited the Pioneer museum just down the road to kick off the weekend. Saturday morning we explored more of Fort Washakie, going to visit Sacajawea's resting place and the local museum where we bought some handmade jewelry. After heading back to Lander, we made our way to Popo Agie Falls through the Shoshone National Forest. We attempted to hike the 1.5 miles up to the falls but had to stop just over a mile in due to some asthma related difficulties on my (Lori's) part. Jaden was a trooper and made sure we never slid off the side of the mountain on the way back down. Sunday we stopped in Riverton to fuel up before heading out for the hour long journey to Castle Gardens Petroglyphs. The trip was well worth it, the land is beautiful and we even saw a herd of deer!









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