Update IV

Welcome my friends to the show that (seemingly) never ends.

It’s time for week 4 of The Update. In the background Three Amigos is playing on British television and we have just tracked down a missing patient. In other words, it is a normal Sunday night here at Camp Bastion Hospital.

Increasingly, the feeling here is that in spite of the pretty regular diet of trauma patients coming through, things are a bit same-y. I know that people who have been on deployment will recognize the feeling. As foreign as anything can be at the outset, things quickly become routine, and from routine they become boring. (Not that the trauma is boring, if anything it is TOO exciting.) But with nothing else to do, a day quickly turns into another, work/sleep/work. And it gets same-y. Groundhogs Day references become the, well not the funny thing, but the thing that people say and chuckle about even though it isn’t funny at all. (“I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.” “Ha ha.” That’s a normal hallway conversation right there. I know that it isn’t the Algonquin Round Table, but it is one you hear 3 or 4 times a day. This constant repetition, from the same people every day, only adds to the sense that nothing is unique. )

But what, I hear you all asking, do you actually DO all day? Well, I sleep all day. That’s what I do. I work at night, which means that my pallor is increasingly pale and my social contact is scarce. During the night, my shift goes from about 10:45 PM (2245) to about 7:00 AM (0700) I track patient movement into and through the hospital. Say, as is not uncommon, a fellow has an upset stomach or groin pain. They come in to the Emergency Department (ED) and get their initial evaluation, then from there they go, in the above mentioned simple cases, either to a Ward or back to their unit. If they come in via helicopter and are in bad shape, which happens, then it gets more complicated. They go from the ED to the Operating Theatre (OT), then to the Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU), then on to the Wards or off to another location. It all depends on how full the hospital is and whether or not we have the ability to treat long-term. Often we pass guys along within 24-48 hours. The ones that are worse off go the quickest. My job is to make sure that everyone involved knows where the patients are at any given time.

Tonight I was trying to find a guy who came in this afternoon. He was an Afghan National Army fellow who had come in as a Category A, (really messed up) and gone to the OT. He had left the OT late in the afternoon and as of 9PM (2100) was supposed to be… somewhere. I came on at 2200 and no one could find him. He hadn’t gone to the ITU, hadn’t gone to the Wards… there was no paperwork, no tracking. He was gone. I started to get worried. There is a saying here that is probably overly cynical, but it is: ANA today, Al Quaeda tomorrow. I got a nurse from the ED interested and we started tracking him down. After about an hour and a half it turned out that he’d left for Kandhar hours ago, but no one had documented it. No worries, everything fine, just poor procedures. But that’s what I do, and that’s a good example of why it’s necessary.

Some of my friends have pointed out that this deployment has no excitement to it. They don’t mean in the same-day sense. They mean that there is no shooting .They mean that I am not a tactical warrior. I have been thinking about it and they are right. I am not a war-fighter. I am willing to be, I think. (I haven’t done it, so how can I know?) But I think that the military makes its money off me in an office setting. I am good with computers; I am great with Microsoft Excel. I am, in a nutshell, the Ewan Macgregor character in Black Hawk Down, before he gets picked up to go with the Rangers. And that’s not something that I am super proud of. I know, people back home think of military ventures as being something honorable and to be proud of. I know that there are people who pray for my safety and worry about me all the time. But honestly, I AM safe. I am in one of the safest possible places that I could be. The closest to trouble I’ve been was at my own instigation, I drove a bus the wrong way and it might have gotten stuck. That’s as dangerous as this has been, and probably as dangerous as it will be. In a lot of ways, that’s good. (I mean, right? It seems self-explanatory. I know my wife is happy that I reside within that level of safety.)

It seems foolish to complain about, doesn’t it? Here I am, in the warm, without a care, and I feel like there is something wrong with me. On the other hand, the laundry facilities aren’t terrific. AND the bathrooms are rubbish. Have I talked about the bathrooms yet? The toilets are stainless-steel, prison jobs. I bought 5 plastic toilet seats that fit into the top of the bowl, for more comfort. Amazon sells them and ships them out here. They’re nice little devices, but you’d be amazed how many people don’t use them and seem to prefer squatting over cold steel. The there are the showers. They have a button that gives 8 seconds of water. Depending on the shower, and its proximity to the heater, the temperature will be scalding or cold. If you get a plastic spoon and place it just so, it will force the button to remain in, giving you as regular shower, until you lean backwards and get a spoon jammed into your back.

There, even though I am perfectly fine, there are still things to complain about. You can all feel safe, knowing that your boys in uniform are undergoing such hardships.

Prince William was here today. As it was Veteran’s Day in the States, so it was Remembrance Day in Britain. I didn’t know he was coming, and I didn’t see him, but I did get stopped by armed guards on my way home this morning and told that I couldn’t get home the normal way. It was a really big deal, though. I pointed out to a bunch of Brits that he is a lot less handsome now that he is really, sincerely balding. They didn’t agree or disagree, which I found oddly patriotic.

People have asked what to send, what things are needed here in the Ghan. Well, anything , really. Everyone shares everything, so anything you can think of sending, someone will want. Food is a big one. The British food is terrible. I know that that’s something everyone says, but you wouldn’t believe it if you didn’t see it. Their bacon is like rancid ham. I will say that again, their bacon is bad! Those of you who know me well will know that my feelings on bacon border on religious. That British bacon is inedible is like saying that they worship Satan. It is wrong, wrong, so wrong. Their eggs are not like normal eggs. They fry them in something like vulcanized rubber. I am trying to tell you that they manage to mess up breakfast. You can’t imagine what horrors await when you get to lunch and dinner. And the closest Chow Halls are British, so all the Americans are hungry, all the time. Other than that, any old thing, really. People will make a use out of anything that isn’t obviously rubbish. Not egg shells or empty cans, we’ll take it.

That’s all I can think of tonight. What’s happening with you?