Half-way Home

Hi everyone,
Last night I made it to Manas, Kyrgistan which was a major obstacle in getting me home. Last week they told me I'd likely be flying home on the 25th. Then last Friday they said they were going to try to get me moved up the the 20th since my replacement got to Bagram a bit early. On Sunday night they confirmed that they got me (and another 10 docs trying to get out) confirmed on a flight out of Manas on the 20th but told us that we were "on our own" for getting to Manas from Bagram. When we went to the military airport on Bagram they told us that we would need to come every night to the airport with all of our gear and wait "Space Available" to see if we could get on a flight out. They were not certain that they would be able to get us out all week and we were told that if we didn't get out by Wednesday night we would miss our flight out of Manas on the 20th and then we were not booked for any flight at all (not even the 25th) and would have to wait for "space available" flights out of Manas which are only once a week. Talk about stress! It is amazing how hard they work to get you down range, but it is of no priority to them to get you home.

So on Monday after I finished packing up all of my stuff I stopped by the hospital real quick before I was going to finally sleep (for the first time in 24 hours.) I found out that there had been an explosion at a marketplace 20 minutes from the base and that they were bringing a bunch of casualties in. So I threw a gown on over my physical training uniform and tennis shoes (which I had managed to keep clean for 6 months) in case they needed a hand. We ended up getting 12 afghanis that had been blown up, half were kids. Two hours (and 2 intubations, 2 surgical central lines and 2 chest tubes later) I was covered in blood and all of my patients were in the Operating room or ICU. What was amazing was that we happened to have 5 ER doctors there (2 of the new guys and all 3 of the old ones) so we had one last Hurrah to manage all of these very sick patients all at once. Several patients went straight to the OR so we lost all but one of our surgeons so it was just the ER docs to stabilize everyone and do the emergency operative procedures. It was probably the worst acuity mass casualty incident that we've had here in 6 months, but we were the best staffed with ER docs that we ever could be. It was the perfect "goodbye". I was able to retrieve my back up tennis shoes (that I had donated to the Chaplain a few days before) as my bloody tennis shoes went straight into the garbage. Of course, I was not able to sleep at all after all of that drama so I moved out of my room and that night I got all of my gear (4 military duffel bags, body armor and helmet) the 1 mile to the terminal. I waited with the other docs for a while and then we were told that there was no room on the flight, to try again the next day. So we took all of our stuff back to the hospital to store it in a room and we all found a place to sleep for a few hours.

Tuesday night we dragged all of out stuff up again and we got lucky, one of the units that was confirmed on the flight had cancelled and they had room for all of us! It was about 9 hours from when we got to the airport until we actually left. Customs leaving is terrible. You have to empty every piece of luggage and they go through all of your stuff by hand before you repack it. You get a full body scan to make sure you don't have anything hidden on your person...not sure what they think you want to bring out of this country! We then flew out on a military aircraft (C-17) in full body armor, sitting in jump seats packed like sardines. Not such a comfortable 2 hour flight but I would have flown out on the back of a large crow if it would have gotten me out of Afghanistan! After we arrived in Kyrgistan I had the pleasure of turning in my body armor, helmet and chemical warfare gear...nice to know I shouldn't be needing ANY of those things ever again! I then took a sleeping pill and benadryl and slept all day. First time I'd slept more than 4 hours in 4 or 5 days. It's freezing cold here and the facilities are much like camping, but again, I'd be happy to be sleeping on the rocks if it meant getting me out of here and getting me home! Tomorrow we'll start the process of dragging our bags to the terminal here and waiting for our flight. If all goes as planned I'll fly from here to Adana, Turkey, to Ramstein, Germany then home to Baltimore. I'll be arriving around 4:40 pm local time. My mom is still in town until Saturday so I'll be able to see her in addition to Ashraf, maryam and Layla. I still can't believe that I should be home in two days. It is all too surreal. I am feeling much better from my bout with the flu and am just left with a bad cough.

Thanks for the encouraging emails, I'll let you all know when I am safely at home with my two lovely girls crawling all over me!

Angie