AJChenMPH
Forum Health Inspector
Got this in my inbox this week...it's good stuff.
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Greetings all from hot, hot, hot Iraq.
We are short indeed...although not quite as short as we had originally thought...our flight home has been posted and is showing up 3 days later than planned.
The good news is that we leave in the middle of the night and arrive (all admin complete, including turning our weapons into the armory) around dinnertime at Pendleton on the same day we leave (11 hrs time difference). The other good news is it appears we've got commercial contract air carriers taking us home so we don't have to worry about sleeping on the cold steel deck of an Air Force C-17.
So...we turned over authority of the surgical company last week to our replacements, who had a serious trial by fire here in multiple ways, including multiple traumas, surgeries, increased risk to their personal safety, power outages, water outages, and camel spiders in the hospital...all in their first 4 days. But a few days ago, we heard the helicopters coming and knew they were dealing with multiple traumas, several of which were going to the OR...and we sat in our barracks and waited for them to call us if they needed us. They never did. Last week was the ceremony to mark the official end of our role here. Now we just wait.
As the days move very slowly by, just waiting, I decided that one of the things I should work on for my own closure and therapeutic healing is a list. The list would be a comparison: "Things That Were Good" about Iraq and being deployed with the Marines as one of the providers in a surgical company, and "Things That Were Not Good." Of course, it's quite obvious that this list will be very lopsided. But I thought I would do it anyway, hoping that somehow the trauma, the fear, the grief, the laughter, the pride and the patriotism that have marked this long seven months for me will begin to make sense, through my writing.
Interestingly, it sort of turned into a poem. To be expected, I guess. Most of all it's just therapy, and by now I should be relatively good at that. Hard to do for yourself, though.
So here goes...in reverse order of importance...
Things That Were Good
Sunset over the desert...almost always orange
Sunrise over the desert...almost always red
The childlike excitement of having fresh fruit at dinner after going weeks without it
Being allowed to be the kind of clinician I know I can be, and want to be, with no limits placed and no doubts expressed
But most of all, The United States Marines, our patients... Walking, every day, and having literally every single person who passes by say "Hoorah, Ma'am..."
Having them tell us, one after the other, through blinding pain or morphine-induced euphoria..."When can I get out of here? I just want to get back to my unit..."
Meeting a young Sergeant, who had lost an eye in an explosion. He asked his surgeon if he could open the other one. When he did, he sat up and looked at the young Marines from his fire team who were being treated for superficial shrapnel wounds in the next room. He smiled, laid back down, and said, "I only have one good eye, Doc!, but I can see that my Marines are OK."
And of course, meeting the one who threw himself on a grenade to save the men at his side...who will likely be the first Medal of Honor recipient in over 11 years.
My friends...some of them will be lifelong in a way that is indescribable
My patients...some of them had courage unlike anything I've ever experienced before
My comrades, Alpha Surgical Company...some of the things witnessed will traumatize them forever, but still they provided outstanding care to these Marines, day in and day out, sometimes for days at a time with no break, for 7 endless months
And last, but not least...
Holding the hand of that dying Marine
-----
Greetings all from hot, hot, hot Iraq.
We are short indeed...although not quite as short as we had originally thought...our flight home has been posted and is showing up 3 days later than planned.
The good news is that we leave in the middle of the night and arrive (all admin complete, including turning our weapons into the armory) around dinnertime at Pendleton on the same day we leave (11 hrs time difference). The other good news is it appears we've got commercial contract air carriers taking us home so we don't have to worry about sleeping on the cold steel deck of an Air Force C-17.
So...we turned over authority of the surgical company last week to our replacements, who had a serious trial by fire here in multiple ways, including multiple traumas, surgeries, increased risk to their personal safety, power outages, water outages, and camel spiders in the hospital...all in their first 4 days. But a few days ago, we heard the helicopters coming and knew they were dealing with multiple traumas, several of which were going to the OR...and we sat in our barracks and waited for them to call us if they needed us. They never did. Last week was the ceremony to mark the official end of our role here. Now we just wait.
As the days move very slowly by, just waiting, I decided that one of the things I should work on for my own closure and therapeutic healing is a list. The list would be a comparison: "Things That Were Good" about Iraq and being deployed with the Marines as one of the providers in a surgical company, and "Things That Were Not Good." Of course, it's quite obvious that this list will be very lopsided. But I thought I would do it anyway, hoping that somehow the trauma, the fear, the grief, the laughter, the pride and the patriotism that have marked this long seven months for me will begin to make sense, through my writing.
Interestingly, it sort of turned into a poem. To be expected, I guess. Most of all it's just therapy, and by now I should be relatively good at that. Hard to do for yourself, though.
So here goes...in reverse order of importance...
Things That Were Good
Sunset over the desert...almost always orange
Sunrise over the desert...almost always red
The childlike excitement of having fresh fruit at dinner after going weeks without it
Being allowed to be the kind of clinician I know I can be, and want to be, with no limits placed and no doubts expressed
But most of all, The United States Marines, our patients... Walking, every day, and having literally every single person who passes by say "Hoorah, Ma'am..."
Having them tell us, one after the other, through blinding pain or morphine-induced euphoria..."When can I get out of here? I just want to get back to my unit..."
Meeting a young Sergeant, who had lost an eye in an explosion. He asked his surgeon if he could open the other one. When he did, he sat up and looked at the young Marines from his fire team who were being treated for superficial shrapnel wounds in the next room. He smiled, laid back down, and said, "I only have one good eye, Doc!, but I can see that my Marines are OK."
And of course, meeting the one who threw himself on a grenade to save the men at his side...who will likely be the first Medal of Honor recipient in over 11 years.
My friends...some of them will be lifelong in a way that is indescribable
My patients...some of them had courage unlike anything I've ever experienced before
My comrades, Alpha Surgical Company...some of the things witnessed will traumatize them forever, but still they provided outstanding care to these Marines, day in and day out, sometimes for days at a time with no break, for 7 endless months
And last, but not least...
Holding the hand of that dying Marine