Allo lads and lasses

I'm in England! Sorry I haven't blogged since I got here, the there are four computers for 200 soldiers to share... but I'm finally able to get on. I haven't really felt like I'm in the Army since I left Georgia. We flew comercial flights to England wearing civilan clothes (we do that so that we don't draw unecessary attention). The night that we got here, we had 30 minutes to clean up and attend a meet and greet with our British counterparts and were encouraged to drink with them to facilitate "bonding". The days following have mainly consisted of lectures and powerpoint to familiarize ourselves with how the British run things. The evenings we have free to wander the town of York.. go to bars, dinner, whatever. I feel like this is partly a free vacation! Next week, though, we will be on lock down and go through a validating process. They have a replica hospital that will hold real people acting as patient and we will run as if its all real. They use soldiers with amputations and use professional makeup artists so that it feels quite real. We will basically learn the facility, how things run, and what kind of patients and situations we will have. Since we are technically supporting them, we will be doing everything the British way. There will be challenges that I didn't even think of like that they use different measurements for lab values, like when we use mmHg, they use something else. Lots of terms are different like the ICU is the ITU, med surg is called ICW or the "ward", the ER is called the "causulty". Nurses mix their own meds and we don't have nursing assistants so we will be doing everything, to include fixing up patient meal trays. The way the shifts work is your on 8am-8pm, on call for 8pm-8am, off 8am-8pm, the on 8pm-8am. Basically I will a 12 hour day shift, on call for 12 hours, off for 12 hours, then on for a 12 hour night shift. It will be like this for the whole deployment. The work is heavy on day shift which is why they alternate you day and night... so people don't get burned out. If I was deployed with an American hospital, I'd work 12 hour shifts for 6 days, and have one day off a week, so I can't really complain about this arrangement. In short, based on what I've heard so far about this deployment and our mission, if I could pick any deployment, this is the one I'd pick.

I've made more friends, but still not sticking to any one clique. I have plenty of time to get to know these people, so I'm just taking my time. Sarah is doing well, busy at work and spending alot of her off time with friends. I don't know who I've told, but I will most likely have to PCS (move) when I get back to deployment. Duty stations that look attractive to me are Fort Hood, TX; Fort Carson, CO; Fort Belvior, DC; and Fort Sam Houston, TX. Jobs that I'm considering are : Head nurse, Clinical instructor, Nurse case management, pediatrics, or PACU. Any input is helpful!

Ok, that's about all I have time to write. You probably wont hear from me again until I get to Afghanistan where I will have wifi for 1 hour a day. I miss you all!!!

Love Liz