Hey Everyone!

I passed the 1/3 of the way done mark, two months down!  Sometimes it feels like it's good progress, other times I don't know how I'll make it another 4 months...my whole time here twice more.  One day seems to merge into the next.  Still the same old stuff, day after day.  Work has been okay, really busy one night then not bad at all the next.  It's nice to be busy sometimes as the time passes so quickly; however, it's nice to be slow because I can catch up on emails and most importantly slow means no one's getting hurt! 

 

We've had a lot of pediatric patients the last few weeks.  Most of them are doing well, I take them little toys and coloring books which they seem to like.  We have a 3 year old little girl in the ICU that is just a bit smaller than my daughter...that's kind of hard.  We had a 12 year old girl die of her injuries a few days ago and they wanted a female physician to help prepare her body to give back to the family.  I spent over an hour getting her into a better shape and cleaning her up so that her father could take her home to bury.  That was pretty awful...it reminded me that my job is not always done when the patients heart stops.  I was just greatful that she was not the same age as one of my girls, otherwise I don't know that I could've handled it.  Last week I had a 12 year old boy that came in severly injured by shrapnel and he looked just terrified.  I had the translator tell him that he would go to the operating room and that we would take care of him and he'd be just fine, I then talked to him softly and stroked his head while we gave him medication to put him to sleep, then I intubated him.  As we rushed him to the OR I held my hands over his abdomen as he was pouring out blood, when we got into the OR and the surgeons opened him up they saw the extent of his injuries and one said, "this may not be a survivable injury".  He was in a really rough shape for a few days and I was worried that the last words that he heard (that he'd be fine) may not come true.  But thank God, he did well, is no longer on life support and I saw him up and walking in the hall yesterday.  On the other hand, we had a 25 year old healthy troop die from pneumonia last week.  It's really strange here...people die from things that they shouldn't and others survive injuries that seem unsurvivable.  It all goes to show you that when it is your time, it's your time.  When it isn't, it just isn't.  It sounds so obvious but I see it played out over and over.

 

Everyone back home is doing okay.  The girls are doing fine and M. is talking to me on the computer longer and longer each time.  Sometimes her and I talk for 30 minutes straight which is a really long time to hold a 3 year old's attention.  She really seems to miss me and I think it helps that we talk almost every night.  She went to work with A. on Friday and they had lunch together, she really loved the individual attention.  L. still screams and gets excited when she hears my voice or sees me on skype.  Her and M. are playing together more, they chase each other around the house and she wants to copy everything that M. does.  She even wants to drink most of her milk from a regular plastic cup as that's what she sees M. doing.  She only takes a bottle at night!  Who knows, maybe M. can potty train her in a year!  A. is doing well and my Mom is continuing to do just fine.  So we all are continuing on cruise control for now. 

 

I hope you are all well, Miss you!