Microbiology Lesson and something sweet

So, since most people give me blank stares or a lot of "uh-huhs" on the phone about what I do in the lab, I figured I would take some pictures and give you all a little Microbiology lesson. This is me holding up a throat culture (or maybe a sputum culture). Your respitory tract has a lot of normal flora (meaning a lot of bacteria and yeast that is supposed to be there), so you have to pick out the pathogens on the plate from the normal flora and do different tests on them in order to identify them.

Me again working up a bunch of stacks of plates and putting the results in to the computer.

I'm making an "overwhelmed" face because I had to set up 14 senstivity panels (a record according to one of the ladies I work with)...and let me tell you--it was overwhelming but I did it! The sensitivity panels will tell you what the pathogen is and what anti-biotics it is sensitive and resistant to.

Me pipetting for the senstivity panels.

This is Kristine. She is a lot of fun to work with (as you can tell by her waving to the camera) and she has taught me a lot! She not only works seven 10 hour days in a row here at Portneuf Medical, but then she spends a few days up at EIRMC in Idaho Falls. And on some weekends she works down in Tremonton. Whew! I don't know how she does it.

This is Char and she, too, is a lot of fun to work with! She ended up here in Idaho by taking a road trip many years ago from Minnesota and ended up here. I'm glad she did so I could get to know her. :)

Above are reagents for the Gram stain. We use this stain to somewhat narrow down what we're looking for with bacteria. We use it when we first get samples in (wound samples, sputums, throat samples, etc.) and roll it onto the slide, or we do a Gram stain on a culture from the plates that we want to identify.

First we put the sample on the slide and let it dry. Then we set the slides on this bridge and flood the slides with the first stain and let it sit for one minute...

...then you rinse off the slide with tap water...

...then flood slides with the second stain for one minute, rinse, then squirt slides with a decolorizer (the third reagent in the tray), rinse, put the last stain on for one minute, rinse, dry, then view under the microscope.

I took this picture through the microscope. What you see are "gram positive cocci". There are gram postive (purple), gram negative (pink), and gram variable organisms (varies). And then there are cocci (spheres), bacilli (rods), and other shapes that I won't go into (those are just our main ones). Staphylococcus aureus (which includes MRSA), Streptococcus pyogenes ("Strep throat" or "Group A Strep"), and Streptococcus agalactiae ("Group B Strep"--screened in pregnant women) are all examples of gram positive cocci. :)

Above is another picture I took through the microscope. The purple things are the gram positive cocci and the pink things are gram negative bacilli (or rods). E. coli is an example of a gram negative rod. These are some of the things I look for under the microscope to give us some idea of what kind of bacteria we're dealing with.

Above is a culture plate of Pseudomonas aeruginosa--one of my favorite "bugs". It is a resistant bacteria that can cause some pretty serious infections. I like it because I like saying the name and it smells like grape on the culture plate. :)

And this is the three of us. We are holding up plates in which we wrote our names with different bacteria and let it grow:

This plate says "Staph Char aureus". This is a MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus) positive culture on a Sheep Blood Agar.

This plate says "Kristine Hodson". This organism is Micrococcus grown on Sheep Blood Agar. It is very yellow! Today I wrote my name in Chinese with Micrococcus and I will see how it turns out tomorrow!

And if you didn't guess already, this says "Jamie" with a flower above it. This culture is E. coli (another one of my favorite "bugs"--I had it once as a kid so I have enjoyed learning about it because of that, plus it grows such a pretty pink!).

So this is the end of your Microbiology lesson. I have moved on to Blood Banking/Transfusion Medicine now for the next two weeks. I was sad to leave Micro because it is my favorite department and the ladies are so much fun to work with. But I am excited to learn more about Blood Banking!

Now on to something sweet. Julie called me last week and told me about this AMAZING sale at Winco for strawberries: 4lbs for $2.99! Limited to one per customer though, so Kenny and I each got in line with one. So the next morning before work I made jam!

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I use the Ball brand in the packets because you use about 1/3 of the sugar and it's not as sweet (I actually like it kind of tart). YUM!

A Graduation, Clinicals, The Job Hunt, Bicycle Built for Two, and Memorial Day

Graduation

A couple weeks ago we went down to Malad to Kenny's brother, Travis's, graduation. It was like any other high school graduation with it's own special perks. The great-grandson of D.L. Evans (as in the Bank) was the guest speaker for it. The grandson (who was also the Governor of Idaho a while back) was actually supposed to speak, but due to some medical issues he wasn't able to come. So his son read his speech for him.
Clinicals

The Monday after graduation I started my clinical rotations at Portneuf Medical Center in the Microbiology department. So far I LOVE them! I have been in that department for 3 weeks now and I have one more week in Micro before I switch over to Blood Bank/Transfusion Medicine. I have seen some pretty interesting stuff since I started and the ladies I work with are a lot of fun. I work with two different sets of women. In a lot of labs they have 7 on/7 off shifts where you work Thurs-Wed ten hour shifts. Then you take the next Thur-Wed off. They work 70 hours in their "7 on", but get paid for 80 hours, and then you technically only work half a year. I'm not sure if I would like it or not because you have to work every other weekend, and if holidays land on your "7 on", you're working it! The good thing is that you can plan a 7 day vacation without having to schedule it off. :) Luckily, for my rotations, I only work M-F, 8-4 (sometimes they let me go early).

The Job Hunt

Kenny has been applying for jobs in a few different places lately. The one he applied for in Utah for Constellation Energy has been filled, however he got a phone call a couple weeks ago (by the same company) asking if he was interested in a position in Jamestown, California. Kenny said he was interested and we have been researching the are via Google and calling realtors and such to get a good idea of what the area is like. Kenny has been checking online to see if the position has come open and it hasn't yet. It is kind of far away, but it would be an adventure! We'll see what happens. Kenny will also be checking with a few other companies down in the Salf Lake area to see if they are hiring. In the meantime, Kenny has started working for Perk's Electric over in Soda Springs mostly working in Monsanto. This will hold us over until he can find a job and until I get done with my clinicals (July 31).

Bicycle Built for Two

The owners of the animal hospital I work at gave Kenny and I the tandem bike they bought a year ago. They just had a baby and decided they have grown out of it. I had mentioned a while back that I enjoyed bike riding and wanted to get a bike someday. So the day before graduation they rode it to our house with a sign and ribbons on it as a graduation gift for Kenny and I. Soooo...Kenny and I decided to take it for a ride up Mink Creek. Oh boy! We had to stop about every 50 feet going up the road because we were so out of shape! I think we'll just keep it on a paved greenway trail from now on! :)

Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial Day weekend we had a couple of our close friends come up from Utah to hang out with us along with Kenny's brother. The boys went caving while my best friend, Shelley, and I went and got pedicures (I had birthday money burning a hole in my pocket)! It was a lot of fun!

Kenny in an ice cave

Kenny's brother, Travis in ascending up the ice cave to get out.

Our friends Grant, Cade, and Travis

On Memorial Day Kenny and I went to Arimo and spent the day with Shelley's family. We had a yummy picnic and then some of us played a game called Quibble (I think?)--it's very similar to Scrabble--while Shelley's dad put the boys to work on a few small projects. Then a bunch of us played Crochet. I hadn't played in a long, long, long time! I remember playing on Grandma and Grandpa Baum's lawn way back when! :)

That's me. I trusted Kenny to get a "good" shot of me playing crochet and this is his interpretatin of a "good" shot.

This is Kenny and this is my interpratation of a good shot.

And this is Shelley's dad giving his grandkids a ride with the "tractor".

GRADUATION PICTURES

These are some of my favorite pictures that I have compiled from Julie's, Dad's, and my cameras. I was sitting on the farther section, about ten rows back, and about five seats in from the middle isle. I could actually see the podium from where I was sitting! That usually doesn't work out for me. There I am walking to shake hands with the Provost and get my diploma cover.
And this was what it was like after the ceremony:

In this picture I was bestowing the Stole of Gratitude to Kenny for being my support when I was down, when I wanted to cry, when I wanted to quit, when I wanted to crawl in a hole and not come out, when I complained about unfair teachers, horrible tests and assignments, and all that comes with going to college. He kept me going even when I thought I couldn't push on any more. Thank you Kenny, and to everyone who believed in us and kept us going.

My friend, Angie, and me. We were in the program together and became good friends.

My friend, Dominee, and me. We were cheerleaders together, did Jr. Miss together, were in choir together, and graduated from high school together. We were eachother's first roommate, we walked through the ISU Arch together when we were freshmen and both walked back through as seniors (even though we didn't walk through it together), and we both graduated from ISU together. She got her degree in Social Work.

And these are some of my fellow CLS students--we all had a great time together this year and I am going to miss them (*sniffle*).

A BIG thanks for all those who came to support us at our graduation and/or the BBQ afterward. It means so much to us that you were there!

GRADUATION!!!

I have mailed out announcements to family but I was limited on how many I had, so I thought I would scan one in for the rest of you. :-) Seating is not limited if you want to sit through four hours of blah, but we will be having a BBQ at our house after graduation--around 2:30pm. For those of you who don't know our address, it's:

902 Meadowbrook Ln

Pocatello, ID 83201

If you need directions, let me know via email: jgarrett421@hotmail.com and I will give you directions. We are both so excited and we would love to see everyone. Please RSVP if you are able to come to the BBQ so we know how many to plan for. Even if you don't want to sit through graduation, we would especially like to see you afterward. :-D

By the way, the answer to the riddle below is.....you would urinate in it. Ha ha! You don't always have to use everything you're given.