Almost done!

Its Easter tomorrow, the last Holiday spent in Afghanistan. I can't believe this deployment is finally coming to a close. I've seen and experienced and learned so much over the last 6 months. Its actually going to be quite bittersweet to leave. I will miss the people, the patients, and the simplicity of life. Now for the next chapter of my life...

The world in one place

Yesterday I had an Afghan, Australian, Italian, and British patient. I feel very cultured.

Rupert

Sat with a guy for a couple hours listening to his story. The story where his buddy stepped on an IED and lost everything below his chest. They couldn't strap him to the gurney because there wasn't enough of him, he fell off the gurney even. He said he was typically the outgoing guy, telling jokes and being the center of attention but it was taking too much energy to keep up the image and pretend like nothing was wrong. He was the leader over 7 guys and just wanted to be strong for them. My heart broke for him. And his friend, Rupert, who has a one month old baby at home that will never know his dad.

Home in less than a month sounds so good.

It's March!

I can finally say that I come home next month! I'm so ready to come home and enjoy all the luxuries of American living, and bring home all I've experienced and learned.
The latest around here... I'm sure you all heard about the Koran burning. Because of that, we had to increase our security level, so we're all carrying our weapons now with a full magazine, and when we walk over to Leatherneck, we have to keep the magazine loaded. Its a scary thought knowing that I have a deadly weapon on my thigh, and that there's even a possibility that I might have to use it.
I love being a nurse.. its funny how much people assume nothing phases you... I acted like it was completely normal when she changed her tampon 2 feet from my face and as I wiped a 20 year old soldier's rectum after being incontinent of stool. But inside I'm thinking... I'm am seriously in this person's personal space. I know it sounds silly, but I feel honored to be in that kind of position, and make them feel normal about it. Speaking of normal, or not so normal... we have a patient that's having his hands sewn into his abdomen to encourage tissue growth. Bizarre right? I wish people could spend a day in my shoes sometime, the crazy stuff I see...

The latest

I realized I hadn't blogged in awhile, so I thought I'd write about the latest.
The UK nurses only deploy for 3 months at time, so at our half way point, half of our staff changed. As if that wasn't enough to adjust to, the teams changed so that we were with different American's too, and the Hospital command team were also new. With new leadership comes a different way of doing things, and more change. I've officially met my potential to be flexible. We originally had 3 teams of nurses doing the day night day night shift pattern, and now we have 4 teams doing the LENO system: late, early, night, off. I like the shift pattern, more time off and easier to adjust, but having gone to 4 teams has spread us pretty thin, and we are still busy as ever. There's a whole drama about switching back to 3 teams... I'm going neutral on this one. Personally, I think we should be able to handle the load, but yes, it would extremely tight if someone were sick or sent home. I'm just used to doing what I'm told the best that I can. Thats what I'm going to do. A lot of the US nurses are at their breaking point, fighting all theses changes, new rules, new style of leadership. I'm staying in the background, still enjoying my job, and doing my best. I want to come home, but I'm not at any sort of breaking point...yet.

Award

I found out today that I'm receiving an award for helping to save that man's life. I guess I didn't realize that people knew what I did. Several of the surgeons in the hospital made a point to tell me I saved his life by rushing him to surgery. I'm thrilled and humbled to be recognized for this. How cool that I was even in a position to help someone in that way. Right time, right place.

IDF

Crazy night. IDF alarm went off, had to put on the patients and ourselves on the ground for an hour bracing for the worst. We've really gotten a taste of everything out here. My adrenaline keeps kicking in, and then I crash, I'm exhausted. My brain lobectomy patient tried to run off the ward and punched a staff member. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, another patient of mine vomited almost 2,000ml of bile- not pleasant.
The transition is here for the British and we are going to a new schedule. I'm looking forward to it. Its called LENO, Late, Early, Night, Off. I think we'll like it more than Night, Day, Night, Day.
Last thing I want to mention... I feel so encouraged right now. More than one person, including a surgeon personally thanked me for helping save that mans life. I feel like a made a REAL difference. I do have to say that I like the medical profession in the way than no one person can take all the credit, it truly takes a team to do it.

Mass Cal

Dreams of what could happen on this deployment came to fruition last night. What I have been trained over and over to do became necessary yesterday. Thinking about it all night... there are things I wish I had done differently, done better, and there were things I rocked. What I can proudly say is that I was loud enough for the doctor to hear me in his haze "I'm calling a surgeon, this patient needs to go to surgery NOW". I knew he was bleeding into his abdomen and we didn't have much time. He finally looked up and heard me, and it turned out he was minutes from death. I followed the patient into surgery and gave him over 10,000 mls of blood, and he lived.

I will never forget today.

Teaching the locals

Today I got to travel to the local hospital and teach the Afghans basic body systems of a human. This was the first of hopefully many classes that I will get to teach. Our mission is to "aid in the discharge process" so that we can transfer our patients to them more smoothly. This project excites me to no end.  

Raw bone, and a foot in a bag

Worked in the Emergency Department today, it was an incredible experience. I got a pretty good picture of what comes into the ED every day, and it was nice that they actually used me. I've seen and learned so much in one day. Wow.

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr