Happy Anniversary to ME

When I woke up this morning, I realized that I have been in Germany for 1 year! I landed New Year's Eve last year with Julie. It's funny to think of all that has happened in a year. I've dated a few guys, been to a few countries, babies have been born, people have moved away, new people have arrived, I've moved to a new house. It's Crazy.

In the last year I have been to:
Germany
-Munich
-Idar Oberstein
-Trier
-Rhine River Biking
Belgium
-St. Vith
-Tongaren
-Brugge
France
-Metz
-Strasbourg
Spain
-Barcelona
Italy
-Rome
England
-London
Switzerland
-Bern
Prague
Netherlands
-Keukenhoff Gardens

This year, I hope to get to Greece, Paris, more of Switzerland, Turkey, and maybe Egypt. All this will be determined by my deployment. I am officially on the list. If the 47th CSH still goes somewhere, I'll be going with them in August. Time is short.

I am also applying (well, attempting) to grad school for June of 2010. I am attempting to do the virtually impossible by applying as an inexperienced nurse. The Chief of Anesthesiology and the Head Nurse of ICU are both sticklers about attending the Critical Care Course first and thinking that I'm redicioulous to even try. So, I have 3 months to change their minds because I need a recommendation from Anesthesia and a competency checklist from ICU. I am burrying myself in my studies and my work for the next few months. I'm increasing my work shifts to an additional 60 hours every two weeks and taking the GRE on the 21st of Jan so that if I need to take it again I can in February. As I am currently single, this'll be pretty easy.

Apparently, news to me, I promote to 1LT tomorrow. I have no orders of course, the company was totally suprised, but I got an e-mail from the higher powers that said "Congratualations, Jan 1!!" I'll take it, but I still need orders. Hopefully today, because certainly not tomorrow.

I'm still waiting on Christmas packages. I gues the mailroom is overwhelemed and they're playing catch up over the next few days. We'll see what happens!

Well, I'm off to study ventilators, hemodynamics, narcotics, and GRE vocabulary before work tonight.

Happy New Year's!!!

Happy Anniversary to Ken and Mary!! And, Hapy Belated Anniversary to Grandma and Grandpa!

Equus

So, Molly Walter (formerly Taylor), one of my good high school friends, told me a really cool thing the other day. Most of you probably are part of the same news chain and already know, but a guy I went to high school with and was in Oliver and A Midsummer Night's Dream with, Paul Schlapkohl (sp?) or now, Paul David Story, is the standby for Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) in Equus on Broadway! How cool is that?! Gabe was in New York City for Christmas so I told him about it, mostly just for fun, and he was able to get tickets for the performance on he 26th!!! What a lucky little devil!! I'm so jealous. That would have been amazing. Equus had a sold-out run in London, and Gabe was able to get tickets just days before a show on Christmas weekend! I haven't heard from him about how it was or who he saw. Hopefully, he'll take the time to tell me about it. Small world. Love it.

Christmas in Germany

Christmas in Germany was a different kind of Christmas. I worked the night of the 23rd, so I got off on Christmas Eve morning. I went the mailroom hoping that there was a package slip in my mailbox. There was ONE! YAAAY! It was from Steve&Diane! I intended on making a trip again that afternoon to see if Mom or Dad's packages arrived that afternoon. However, when I went to bed there was NO HOPE for me being awake in time to make another trip to the mail room with no guarantee. So, I decided to just wait and have a prolonged holiday package season.
I woke up at 5pm to go to Nate and Michele's for Christmas Dinner! I was very excited to be spending Christmas Eve with them and Baby Nadia, but I was SO TIRED still. I pretty much rolled out of bed, put nice clothes on, and went in my slippers :) Michele cooked a wonderful turkey with all the accessories. Nadia slept through dinner so we were able to all sit down and enjoy. Julie was supposed to join us, but I guess after working a long day and working again on Xmas, she wasn't feeling too well, so decided to stay home. It would have been really nice to have her celebrate with us.
After dinner, we opened some presents. By 'we', I mean Nate and Michele finished opening theirs, I received my new favorite lotion and a big candle from them, and Nadia decided it was time for her dinner and dessert. Nadia was dressed in her cute Christmas outfit from Emily. She had little reindeer on her feet with antlers that moved when she kicked. It was so amusing. We then watched the classic 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'.
After I went home, I COOKED until 3am!!! Yes, I cooked. I made Pumpkin bread, I started marinating the beef tenderloin steaks, I toasted nuts, I made a cheese ball. I was a crazy person. I realized slowly, I have no serving dishes!! But, such is the life of a single 20-something girl who doesn't cook a lot. I love the Polish Pottery out here, so I think that will become my investment over the next few years/months. I went to bed for a very short period of time before I woke up again to keep cooking. I made rolls, lil' sausages wrapped in crescent rolls, then I seared the beef tenderloin steaks. Shawn brought the green bean casserole that he made all by himself. Snaps to Shawn. I should have taken a picture of the table because I made a lot of food. Emily walked in and said, "This is the most I have ever seen you cook!"
After eating, we played Apples to Apples. Michele was sweeping all the green apple cards. She knew just how to convince anyone to pick her card. Slowly, people flitered off to other things. Chieuly and Eric had another dinner to go to, Jason worked that night, Nate and Michele were sleep deprived and needed a nap. When it was calm and quiet, Shawn, Emily, and I debated watching a movie. We never got that far. Shawn and I started slurring our words and sleep talking to each other. I was fast asleep around 9pm on Christmas night. I barely even remembered that Mom had called me when I woke up the next morning.
The morning after Christmas, I was wide awake at 10am. I worked tonight, so I knew I had to go back to sleep. I made some peppermint tea, cut some pumpkin bread, and cuddle on my couch with my cat watching Casablanca. It was perfect, by the end, I was ready to go back to bed. I went to work that night for the start of one of the worst 3-day weekends I've worked in a long time, but that's a WHOLE different story...
Now that Christmas is gone until next year, I'll slowly put my Christmas stuff away until next year. Who knows what next year will bring though. I could be in Iraq!! It's amazing how much can happen in a year. I work New Year's Eve and New Year's Night this year. 2 more night shifts, then back to days!! I need some daylight!

A Wicked trip to London

Emily and I went to see WICKED in London as our Christmas present to ourselves.... although, it really didn't feel like Christmas. We flew out from Zwiebrucken, about 30 minutes away, on a 20Euro flight to London Sanstead. We then took an hour bus ride into London. Smart as we are, our bus stop was blocks away from our hotel and right next to the Apollo Victoria theater. We got into our little bed&breakfast, changed, and off we went to find some FOOD. We figured there would be food near the theater so we ambulated in that general direction. We found the theater and kitty corner to it was a little Italian restaurant. We took a gamble, got right in, and had a full full meal. We both had room for a wonderful dessert. I had an Apple Crumble with Amaretto and ice cream. Then, it was SHOW TIME! We had wonderful seats for the price bracket we chose. The only thing we couldn't see was the dragon clock at the top of the stage. We saw a few understudies: Glinda, Dr. Dillamond, and the Wizard. They were all very good. the Witch had a wonderful voice and was great at awkward. We had both recently finished the book, so we weren't sure what to expect from the story adaptation. I thought they did a very clever thing turning characters into the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow. I'm not so sure about the whole happy ending thing, but I guess it makes sense. I burned Emily a copy of the soundtrack as her Christmas present.
On Sunday, we took it easy. We went to the Tate Modern, got weirded out by some Modern Art. Saw some Monet, Picaso, and Pollack. Good fun. Then we walked down the river looking for food. We went towards Harrod's and found lots to eat. Eating before Harrods probably saved us some impulse buying. After food, we got lost in a different decade that is Harrod's department store. I love Harrod's. I found a beautiful dress that I couldn't stop thinking about. It's a very light sea foam green, strapless 50's party dress, with beading on the bodice. It's actually about a size too big, but it needs alteration anyway because the zipper is broken. So, this dress is 200L (400US). Well, it WAS. Then, it was 50 percent off, plus additional 10 because of the zipper. I guess all the dresses were doing it. In the end, I got it for 85 US. WOOT. I'm excited. I just need to find someone to alter it now. I dont think I'm capable.
After Harrods, we went to Westminister Abbey. We attended a Christmas Meditation. I meditatated all right. According to some, I was PMSCing my eyelids. I was warm and enjoying the Organ. It promoted a wonderful state of relaxation. All was well. It was the only way to get inside the Abbey on a Sunday. Then we went back to our little B&B and Full-sized bed and got into the Xmas spirit by watching Christmas with the Kranks.
That night, after a brief daytime snooze, we baked cookies and watched A Christmas Story! I took Kristen Larsen's recipe for Rocky Mountain Chip Cookies and we put Emily's white chocolate holiday swirl chips in and made some yummy cookies. We had two boys sitting on the couch waiting for the first taste. Emily's boyfriend Sean kept sneaking dough and our other friend, Jason, was there as a taste tester too. Since it was two days to Christmas, and Emily was supposed to work Christmas day, we decided A Christmas Story was the most appropriate for celebrating a wonderful weekend in London and Christmas cookies!

Prayers for Rob

For many who have been keeping up on my blog or have been my primary forms of Nebraska news, the soldier I was blessed to visit in the ICU at LRMC passed away on December 1st. For those of you who don't know what to get me for Christmas, go to http://yllescasfamily.blogspot.com and donate to Dena and her family. CPT Yllescas has an amazing family, a devoted wife, a brave 7 year old daughter, and another baby daughter who will now only know her father through others' memories.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was very nice. My dad, Michelle, and Clover Twinkles came to visit!! Thanksgiving dinner was spent at Rhine Ordanance Barrack's Dining Facility. For 6.50 a person, you got a full Thanksgiving dinner. Granted, it wasn't phenomenal, but it was good and just perfect after traveling and not wanting to make a huge mess cooking. We met Michele and Nate there and Gabe, Cliff, and Sonya came too before heading off to Switzerland. After dinner we relaxed and enjoyed Turkey coma. We didn't do a lot on Thanksgiving. Watched movies, relaxed, and slept.

Friday we slept in, tried to get me moved in more, and relaxed. We went shopping for foods and storage. That night we fed Chloe her first baby food. German pumpkins :) Her little face was so funny trying to decide if she liked it or not. Again, pictures will accompany everything when I get home...

Saturday we went to Strasbourg, Frace to a Christmas market. Dad and Michelle were zombies after having not slept all night as Chloe was still on stateside time. But, we went anyway hoping to get some sleep on the bus. Of course Chloe slept on the bus... Strasbourg was nice and cold, Gluwein was everywhere, and we ate our way through the city. Of course not knowing French made it more difficult than going to a German Christmas market, but we did fine. It was an all day trip and we got back around 7pm. After that, we were all out for the count. We got home and ate leftovers and relaxed on the couch. We gave Chloe her first haircut too. Got rid of the baby mullet. She has a LOT of hair!!

Sunday was another sleeping in day. We went to brunch at Sander's in Landstuhl, then walked around Landstuhl's weekend Christmas Market. Got some hot donuts and enjoyed the atmosphere. We took a drive to Burg Nanstein looking over Landstuhl. We got home pretty late, then I went and got Gabe from Jason's house. Gabe spent the evening with us watching Buffy , eating homemade pizza, drinking wine and beer.

Monday morning we got up freaking early to take Gabe to the airport. It was hard, I was sad, I cried. Then we went to the Sheraton across the way and had a buffet breakfast. It was probably better in the end to get up early so that we didn't waste our remaining time sleeping as much as possible. But we were all tired, and I was sad. When everyone was off to a plane, I tired to get back home without my GPS. I only missed one exit and I was lucky enough to recognize that I'd done it right after it happened so I was able to turn around quickly.

Throughout all of this Michele Winn went into labor on Saturday. I got the phone call on Monday morning that Nadia had arrived! I went straight from the airport to LRMC to go visit. She's so beautiful, and SO TINY!! 5lbs 14oz. She knew I'd be sad so she decided to make the day happier by arriving.

Sorry so brief, I'm running out of time on shift. It's almost morning.

A Charlie Brown Trip to Rome

Whew, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. I'll split it into a few entries. First, I went to Rome with Gabe the weekend before Thanksgiving. We flew in on a Friday night and left on a Monday morning. Germany snowed the whole weekend while Rome was in the 50's. I was glad for the 50's.

When Gabe and I landed we shuttled into city center and found our hotel. It was a cute little hotel on the 2nd floor of a building along Via Nazionale. The door was a hole in the wall door and it was buzz-in access. The room was tiny but comfortable and clean. We dropped our stuff off and went on a hunt for food. Neither of us brought the map, brilliant i know, so we walked and walked and walk the most circuitous route to the Trevi Fountain. I knew it wasn't far from our hotel but we walked too far south to begin with and followed random signs. When we got there one of the rose sellers was being really aggressive towards me. Gabe nearly got up in arms with him. From the Trevi Fountain we meandered back to our hotel, the long way, to sleep and get ready for a big Saturday.

Saturday we did a TON. We slept in a little, and then we took the underground to the Vatican. We went through the Vatican museums to ultimately see the Sistine Chapel. We saw a lot of statues, Raphael's "School of Athens", as well as some Dali and Chagall modern art. The Sistine chapel was a lot smaller than I thought it was be. I seem to say that about a lot of things, but it was still phenomenally beautiful. It was very crowded and a no talking rule was strictly enforced by Vatican security frequently hissing "SHHHHHH!!!"
From the Vatican museums we went to Saint Peter's Basilica. It was being set up for a big Sunday mass. There were chairs everywhere blocking a lot of walking space. It was still very massive and impressive. I tried to get a lot of good pictures but it's very hard to hold still long enough to get good light sometimes. Flash just doesn't do inside churches justice.
From Saint Peter's we walked across the Ponte di Castel Sant'Angelo to Piazza Navona. I was so looking forward to Bernini's fountain of the 4 rivers... it was UNDER CONSTRUCTION!! I was so bummed. Then we went to find food. We found a restaurant in an alley a block away from the central Piazza area. This was our best meal of the whole trip. The waiter recommended excellent wine and food and was very friendly. We spent quite a few hours there. It was dark by the time we left.
After the restaurant, we went to the Pantheon then walked to the Spanish Steps along the Via Corso. Lots of good shopping on the Via Corso. I wasn't quite in the mood for spending money though. We enjoyed some time sitting on the Spanish Steps then headed back to the hotel for a few hours to gear up for enjoying some Rome night life. Gabe took a nap and I tried. Here's where the night starts heading downhill....
We signed up for a pub crawl. At the 1st bar we met these two other soldiers from Italy on a weekend away. They were fun to talk to, they were "older" and married, no games. Somewhere in the midst of all this, some girl leaches onto Gabe. Gabe, being Gabe, didn't shut her down. He relished in the flirtation. I think I got a little jealous and I didn't stand up for myself as the girl he was on a trip with despite not being his girlfriend. On the walk between bars, this girl ditched her friends to stay near him, so I talked to our other soldier friends then started talking to an Australian architect making his way through Europe for a few months. It was fun to talk to him, he was cute too, but obviously this did my situation with Gabe no good. We did a few other bars and as the night is wearing on I'm more inebriated, therefore more emotional, and still feeling threatened. Things just started going wrong. To make a horrible story short, at the final place I went into the bathroom and ended up leaving my handbag in there. In the two minutes it took me to circle back to the bathroom, the bag had been rifled through and the 30 Euro I had remaining was gone. All my cards were there, all my ID's were there. I was SO LUCKY. I went back to coat check to look for Gabe and Kris and they weren't there. I made a BIG loop back to the bathroom and they were waiting for me. They were worried. We'd somehow circled each other. I admitted the loss of the 30 Euro and in that instant Gabe and Kris agreed it was time I was taken home. Gabe disappeared to get his coat and I got really upset that nothing was going well anymore. The weird part is, I was not very drunk by any means. Not so pleasant things were just happening to me one after another. By the time Gabe came back, all I wanted to do was crawl into a bathtub. We took a quick and easy taxi back to the hotel and I did as I wanted, I sat in a hot tub for a few hours and then went to sleep. I don't know if Gabe would have responded to the advances of this girl or not, but either way, I became his number one concern in the end. It was one of those nights where I realized that I'm 23, I've never had an experience like that before (thankfully), things could have gone very wrong, and I was very lucky to have Gabe and Kris there for me.

Sunday took me a little while to perk up. After all, my friend Gabe had just had to take me home the night before and he'd never seen me like that before. He was fine of course, and I was just a little embarrassed about the snowballing cascade of events of the night previous. I perked up over breakfast and off we went to the Coloseum. We explored around inside for awhile and then wandered through the Roman Forum. For two simple things we spent a lot of time there. Ancient Rome is by far my favorite part of Rome. It's just fascinating to imagine what once stood. It's fun to walk amongst the rubble and see the Latin engravings in the stone. To see how these immense structures were built and how it was all done before modern machinery. It's right in the middle of modern Rome. You can be walking on the street, turn a corner, and right in front of you are ruins. It's great. We went from the Forum back to the Trevi Fountain for a second look, to take pictures, and to hunt for a gelatertia that I'd been craving for the last few years. Can't find this gelateria ANYWHERE. But, the fountain was much more pleasant this time. We decided to hang out closer to the hotel this night. We took another little nap and then went on a walk looking for dinner. We had one restaurant in mind and ended up finding another. We had a liter of beer and some Italian in a WOK. I laughed, but it was a clever way to serve your food. Straight from the burner. After dinner we went to the Irish pub next to our hotel and just enjoyed each other's company for a little while. We wanted to enjoy our last night in Rome before crashing to be awake at 3:30 in the morning to catch the flight back.

Our flights back were uneventful and then I went to work Monday night. I was EXHAUSTED!!. I'll post pictures when I get home. I'm at work right now.

One Brave Soldier... a Hero.

Last week I received an e-mail from Aut Mary. Through a chain of communication, she had found out that a soldier had been hurt and was flying to Germany. I was able to locate him and visit him. CPT Yllescas was injured in Afgahnistan in an IED blast and was brought to Landstuhl. He suffered extensive injuries and is not out of the woods yet. Luckily, he made the flight from Landstuhl to Bethesda on Tuesday and they landed safely. I was very blessed to spend a short time with CPT Yllescas, his wife Dena, and their mothers at Landstuhl in the ICU. They are a very loving family with a long and difficult road to recovery ahead of them. CPT Yllescas and his wife Dena have two little girls who are hoping to see their father again. Please, keep them all in your thoughts and prayers.

http://yllescasfamily.blogspot.com/

New Home

For everyone who has wondered what happened to the blogging... well, I got lazy and I went on leave and just this past week I moved to a new house. I moved 20 minutes closer to all my friends and Vogelweh Air Force Base and only 5 minutes farther away from work. I'm still quite frenzied and I have no internet (I'm at work right now) otherwise I'd post pictures.

A little bit about my house: It's a duplex in Hohenecken. My neighbors are all mostly middle aged Germans, but I guess there is another female LT nearby who is in Gabe's platoon or company or whereabouts. My house is one story with a basement and 1 car (very narrow) garage. I have a patio and a small yard. My house is was built in the 70's and still looks like it :). There is a fireplace, which was a huge selling point, vaulted ceilings, nice sink, new beautiful stovetop. The rest is still a little dated, the bathroom isn't great, but it has STORAGE, an unheard of concept in Germany. I have 1 master bedroom and 2 little bedrooms plus a basement bedroom. My landlord is very nice. He's in interior design so he's offered to help me paint. I'm very excited to get started on that. I need a ladder though to do the living room with the crazy high walls. I got a nice rug in pretty good condition from the previous tennant who left it on the back patio. I dunno why she left it but she said I could have it. I had Julie (my life saver who helped me move all the little stuff) unroll it with me and look it over before hauled it inside. Gabe and Shawn were my lifesavers who lent me their muscles to help me move all the big furniture. It took a Sixt van 10.5 feet deep 3 trips and 6 hours to move all the furniture... not too shabby. Right now, everything is pilled into the bedrooms and the dining room. I turn over the keys to my old house on Wednesday. So sad, I loved that house, it just wasn't economical for me to stay there....

I'm currently beginning negotiations to get myself transfered to the mother-baby unit. I'm not sure how strong my case is, but Julie advised me to go to talk to her section chief in person to get her on my side. I hope to start the transition processes around the holidays if I get things my way.

I went to Emily Jones & Ryan Stanley's wedding in September. I was very glad I got to go. Most people who read this got to see me so the story is a little redundant. But, I'll put some pictures up eventually (when I get internet again).

I did not get to go to Oktoberfest in Munich this year. I had gotten back from leave on a weekend and I worked the next weekend and I didn't want to go alone in the middle of the week. I'm deployed next year so I'll just have to make sure I go during my third year here.

LRMC has had a 60% staff turnover in the last month. It has made work a little hectic. However, we've been lucky enough that the patient census remains low. 60%!! That's crazy. It's especially crazy because it leaves ME as one of the experienced people!

Well, I'm hungry. Must eat! Pictures later.

Staying up Late

Well, it's 2:20 in the morning. We have two patients going out on the air evac tomorrow. Currently, everything is set and ready to go except the meds and Fitz is already on top of that down in pharmacy chatting with his buddy. It's nights like tonight where were are at 50%, 2 staff members have already gone home, and call bells are silent that I think, "gosh... I'm done until 6am, what am I going to do?" Right now, I'm sitting here typing. It didn't used to be like this. But, every night that it stays like this is one more night that our soldiers aren't getting hurt downrange.

Currently, we are the German Hospice ward. We have the sweetest old lady (80's) who's here with renal failure and she wants to die so she can see her husband again. She's very excited. She talks to him at night in her sleep (in German, of course) We thought it would be about a week, but since she's been here, she's livened up a lot. She is French/German and her husband was an Army NCO. She grew up not knowing when her next meal was. So, when he took her to a snack bar on their first date and let her get what she wanted to eat, she fell in love.

Now, when i decided to wear a uniform, I didn't think I'd be dealing with geriatrics (especially in Germany)... wrong. I thoroughly enjoy the stories of Mrs. M, but the bodily functions that go along with getting really old are not my thing. Now, it's only a matter of time until her body's toxins take away her mental clarity. Some of the staff on this unit just doesn't even care. My day shift came on from the opposite day/night shift (the team I'm moving to against my will is the night team from this group) and she was laying in her bed, wet, crumbs everywhere, a cookie stuck to her butt (literally), she has stage 2 pressure sores, and hadn't been bathed since we last worked (two days) because she was "sleeping". Her oncoming nurse was so upset he was nearly in tears about what he'd discovered as he was telling us this in report that night. I may not want to work geriatrics, but that's just outright neglect. People left her totally alone. If you actually go in there, she'll talk your ear off.

Now, I have another patient, well, not mine-I'm charge. Special forces-very weird. 1. he keeps asking for female nurses to give him a backrub (umm... no) 2. he hits the call button every two hours for 2mg of dilauded, 2 percocet, and benadryl. He also already has a dilauded PCA. He's up walking, talking, relaxed in bed... pain's a tough subject. It's what the patient says it is. But 2mg of dilauded every 2 hours for someone who's relaxed in bed or walking halls and joking with staff in a "7/10" pain... that's a tough call. I'm about to go start an experiment....

4 DAYS!! I get picked up here at LRMC at 0630 on Tuesday morning for the shuttle to the airport. I can't wait! 11 days of bliss!

If you can't see the text above:

"Why is a young vet like you on the street?"

"I have a place to stay. I nearly got into a car accident on the way back from my shrink. I got out to walk off my frustration. This driver was on the phone, watching a DVD, weaving in and out of traffic in a HUGE vehicle! I didn't survive 3 tours in Iraq to get killed by a Hummer here at home!!"

"word."

Labor Day... UA

SO, I seem to write a lot about UA' in the Army. Why? Because something always goes wrong! I went to bed around... oh, 5:30 this morning, read for awhile and racked out. Then I was rudely disrupted from my slumber by a really loudly ringing phone at 9:50. It was my head nurse asking why I hadn't shown up for a mandatory UA by now? I'm obviously dead asleep while I'm talking to him and I muttered that I'd be right in. The UA's usually have to be submitted by 1100. So WHY am I just receiving my first notice at 10am? Well, ok, I have to go in. There's no choice. So, I get up and throw on PT's (because if I've learned anything, it's that PT's count as uniform) and shaved my legs really quick... there's nothing like having someone watch you pee with hairy legs. I got there, and of course they'd packed up early so now I had to go to the company. When I got to the company, SSG Degraw was like "...umm, ma'am, come with me". So, I followed him. I followed him right into the commander's office. I was then drilled with questions about when I got my first notice about the UA, how long did it take me to get here, when did I last work, who was my head nurse, and blah, blah, blah. Then, because I was the last person in the company LAST UA, I got asked abut why I was the last person for that one too. Well, I had a patient with an unstable chest tube in 10/10 uncontrollable pain, we had to notify the MD, get a CXR STAT, put the patient on higher oxygen, check the chest tube, etc, etc. and when they only give you 2 hours to pee, you're running on poor odds. So, now I'm off the hook and the problem is going up the chain, but that's rediculous. How hard is it to say, "I didn't get ahold of McCulloch, you needs to call her before 6am. If you don't get through on her cell phone, CALL HER HOME PHONE!" I was AWAKE at 6, I would have been happy (well, not happy) to not go to sleep yet and come right on in. So, OK, I'm ready, I'm at the company, I'm kosher with the commander again but.... oooh but there's NO FEMALE in the office to watch me! I'm in the orderly room with 5 guys. Not to mention all the supplies are still up at the hospital. So, I sat for 45 minutes waiting for them to come back so that I could pee and get out. There's almost always a UA after a 4-day weekend, so I should have seen it coming. Oh the drama. Go Army.

I've got a spot to go to Switzerland on Saturday! YAAY!

7 DAYS until I FLY!

I might be getting a new kitten. I just got a call from a friend who said they found a kitten on the side of the road. She's with the vet right now for a few days to make sure if somoene's looking they can find her. But, if not, I'm getting the call :-)

...the one with the solar pannels

So, I just got off of a holiday weekend of 12 hour shifts, it's currently 12:46PM (going on 21 hours) and what is my landlord doing??? He's installing solar pannels with a freaking power tool that produces sound at decibels that make sleep IMPOSSIBLE. He was also supposed to go into my basement... 40 minutes ago... to hook them up to the electricity. I think it's pretty cool that I'm getting solar pannels on my house, however, I'm not sure if they're going through MY electricity or my landlords. My landlord does run his business from the basement, and my side has the box, so I'm sure it's a process. It's SOOO LOUD!!! There is NO escape, they're on my side of the house and from either floor, the window is right where they are at.Currently, I am charge nurse for 10D right now. I actually really like it. At least, I like it my way. It's a lot harder when someone is breathing down your neck telling you to do it their way. 'New' Navy comes in September and current Navy leaves in mid October so it's going to get exciting soon. Our census has been running between 7 -12 which is around half capacity. We have become the German hospice ward. It's rather... not what we all imagined doing at LRMC.

I went to Munich last weekend with my friend Michele. It was a long drive, a rainy day, a quick lunch at the Hofbrauhaus, and a sobering tour of Dachau. Dachau is a concentration camp from WWII known for performing medical experiments on those captive there. It's horrifying to walk through the halls, the gas chamber (which they claim was never used there), and see the ovens they used to burn the bodies. It's a place full of ghosts. None of the barracks stand except two they rebuilt. However, you can see how militaristicly it was formatted. The parade grounds where they stood in formations every day to be counted until everyone was accounted for... It's been very sterilized, but you still get an ominous sense from walking through a huge chunk of history that demonstrates how horrible many humans can be to each other and how resilient and compasionate others can be despite living in hell. Viktor Frankl was transported to a concentration camp not far from Dachau in the last weeks before the American liberation.

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Currently, I am 8 days away from flying to the states!!! This time, I'm flying commercial! No more Fort Gordon, no overnights in the North Carolina airport.

This is what my cat thinks about all the noise... stinker.

Barcelona

I got lucky enough to have a holiday tonight due to low census. I got back from Barcelona last weekend and worked this week. Time is passing so quickly now that I'm settled into a routine. One month left until I'm back in the states!

Barcelona was gorgeous. Perfect weather! High 80's and sunny. We started driving to Hahn airport at 3am to make our 630 flight. I hadn't been on Ryan Air before. It reminds me of mass transit with the free for all seating, crazy blue and yellow coloring, and the adds on the overhead bins. We had what appeared to be a bachelor party on the plane with the groom in a pink bunny suit. As much fun as it would have been to find out their story, I was tired. It was a two hour flight and I was out for all of it, all three of us were. We landed and easily hopped on a bus to downtown barcelona where we just started walking with a map towards the cathedral. We knew our hotel was close to it but we didn't know how close everything really was. We walked ALL over the city very easily. The first thing we saw was the cathedral. we were all wearing shorts and tank tops so we had to improvise with our luggage to cover our shoulders and our knees to be allowed in. It's a gorgeous cathedral. We even got to go up on the roof and see the sprawling view of the city.

After the cathedral, we went on a hunt for our hotel. We ran into it just a few blocks from Cathedral... a very nice surprise. We got redressed for the afternoon and went out to see everything we could. We went to Gaudi's cathedral in progress the Sagrada Familia. It's insanely beautiful and strange. Construction started in 1882 and it's not done yet.

We sat for lunch near the beach and had sangria. The big thing we did the first night was went to the Magic fountains of Montjuic. We took the metro then we took the bus and followed the crowds of people and then we found it. Quite beautiful. The night was gorgeous, the breeze was pleasant, and the fountain was doing a different show every 30 minutes. It was so easy to just sit on the stairs and enjoy it. We got back to the hotel and crashed only to wake up far too soon for more of barcelona!

On day 2, we did an amazing amount of stuff. We went on a boat cruise, went to the Gaudi house, went to the park where the Gaudi museum is, climbed to the top of the city, walked La Rambla. Sunday was Emily's birthday and we walked through an antique market and she saw a box she liked, she wouldn't stop thinking about it. While we were on the boat cruise, Christina and I decided to get it for her so Christina distracted Emily and I bought it and carried it around in my purse all day. She kept talking about going back to get it and we had to think quick and make up reasons why she shouldn't go back at this point in time, that she could go back later. We gave it to her over a nice dinner and she was shocked. It was so fun. Then we went to a Flamenco show. I was dead tired by this point and I was struggling to stay awake but it was extremely enjoyable. We swam a bit in the sea. It was washing our feet out from under us. We didn't have a whole lot of time because we had to get ready for the flamenco show and dinner but it was worth going for just a little while. Not like it did my white complexion any good... Lots of boobs on the beach...

A few days ago I had Emily come over and help me move furniture. I moved my bedroom to the room my office was and my office to the bedroom. we moved 3 of the closets around too. Now I can shut out all daylight for night shfit and I have already made the larger floor of the other room into a palate for scrapbooking supplies.

My cat is a horrible spider killer. It's in the 40's at night now and they must be taking refuge in my house. I walked around for awhile tonight with a swiffer and a shoe hunting for spiders. It started because I was closing windows and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this HUGE spider. The biggest spider I've seen yet actually.... ugh, it makes me shiver. It's that time of year I guess...

Bye bye my little car...

So, I reached a decision a few weeks ago with the help of my financial conscience, Michele Winn. Since my subaru wouldn't sell easily on the economy for blue book and since I really still "owe" payments on it... it would behoove me to keep the Subaru, continue to use it for my friends' and my outdoor recreational convenience, and do the maintenence on it. So, I put the Golf (a very sad day) in the Stars and Stripes classifieds. I figured it would take a few days to get placed as the ads are on space available basis. One afternoon a few days later, I got TON of calls in the middle of the day (a day which I was working so i was SLEEPING during the day). I arranged a meeting with someone before I went to work, met them, they wanted it (which was kind of bittersweet), and today I met them to change over the registration and sell it! So, mathmatically, it was pretty much a 24 hour sale. However, when I went to get it inspected after work this morning, they thought it might have a transmission oil leak but it was so dirty underneath they couldn't tell. So, I went to try and pressure wash it myself... no change. I couldn't get under the car to clean it off. So i met the couple, told them what I had to do before I could get it to pass inscpection, and we went on a adventure to find Peter Diller's car wash by the Pizaa Hut. They put the car on a lift and steam cleaned it underneath. We went back to post, the inspectors drove it in the garage, looked under it for the 3rd time and cleared it! YAY! So I walked them through the process of registering a car in Europe. Then they drove me home and went on their merry way with the little car. I was very sad to see the little car go. It was so fun to have my German 5-speed. However, I felt good because now I am back to owning only 1 car and I didn't take a real financial hit by buying and then selling the Golf... and I learned how to drive manual. The couple I sold it to was from Omaha (Papillion specifically for the girl) and they were really sweet... it must have been meant to be. It's such a small community out here I'm sure I'll see them again.

Currently, I'm biding my time before driving to meet Emily and Christina and Christina's friend I don't know yet to got to Barcelona for the weekend!! I'm so EXCITED!! Our flight is at 6:30am so I have to meet them around 3am so we can drive to Hahn airport. The weather is supposed to sunny and high 80's! YAAY!

Concert in Rothenburg

I went to a concert in Rothenburg yesterday with some fellows from work. It was a California concert band on a two week tour of Europe and LDCR Fitz knew some of the kids' parents from back home. So.. we took two cars and drove 2.5 hours. I had just come off a 12 hour night shift and had taken a 40 minute cat nap. woot.

I wanted to include a video of this trumpet player who made me want to go home a play mine (but i can't because it's NIGHT) and the file is too big :-(

I've been keeping busy. Put together some furniture, hung some more pictures... I'm trying to start my masters but I need to take the GRE and talk to the education center about financial aid and how I might work this with no additional active duty requirement... we'll see how it goes. Oh yes, I'm embracing my inner German. I have RED hair. I mean like Auburn with RED highlights. It's pretty cool for me as a crazy person that I am. I decided it's just too fun to have natural hair... I can have natural hair all I want later. I needed something spunky, and I did it.

Soldiers recount deadly attack on Afghanistan outpost

By Steve Mraz, Stars and StripesMideast edition, Saturday, July 19, 2008
Ben Bloker / Stripes Spc. Tyler Stafford, 23, a soldier from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), recounts the hours-long fight that killed nine of his comrades as he recuperates at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Ben Bloker / Stripes Sgt. Jacob Walker, 29, recuperating at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, was wounded in Wanat, Afghanistan, when the forward operating base came under attack early Sunday morning.
MultimediaSpc. Tyler Stafford and Sgt. Jacob Walker talk about the attack.
Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.
It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.
That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.
That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. At a forward operating base — maybe as big as a football field — established just a few days prior.
Outnumbered but not outgunned, a platoon-plus element of soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team accompanied by Afghan soldiers engaged in a fistfight of a firefight.
After maybe two hours of intense combat, some of the soldiers’ guns seized up because they expelled so many rounds so quickly. Insurgent bullets and dozens of rocket-propelled grenades filled the air. So many RPGs were fired at the soldiers that they wondered how the insurgents had so many.
That was July 13. That was when Stafford was blown out of a fighting position by an RPG, survived a grenade blast and had the tail of an RPG strike his helmet.
That was the day nine Chosen Company soldiers died.
It was just days before the unit was scheduled to leave the base.
———
The first RPG and machine gun fire came at dawn, strategically striking the forward operating base’s mortar pit. The insurgents next sighted their RPGs on the tow truck inside the combat outpost, taking it out. That was around 4:30 a.m.
This was not a haphazard attack. The reportedly 200 insurgents fought from several positions. They aimed to overrun the new base. The U.S. soldiers knew it and fought like hell. They knew their lives were on the line.
"I just hope these guys’ wives and their children understand how courageous their husbands and dads were," said Sgt. Jacob Walker. "They fought like warriors."
The next target was the FOB’s observation post, where nine soldiers were positioned on a tiny hill about 50 to 75 meters from the base. Of those nine, five died, and at least three others — Stafford among them — were wounded.
When the attack began, Stafford grabbed his M-240 machine gun off a north-facing sandbag wall and moved it to an east-facing sandbag wall. Moments later, RPGs struck the north-facing wall, knocking Stafford out of the fighting position and wounding another soldier.
Stafford thought he was on fire so he rolled around, regaining his senses. Nearby, Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling, who later died in the fight, had a stunned look on his face.
Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford, blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.
Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first."
This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack.
Kneeling behind a sandbag wall, Phillips pulled the grenade pin, but just after he threw it an RPG exploded at his position. The tail of the RPG smacked Stafford’s helmet. The dust cleared. Phillips was slumped over, his chest on his knees and his hands by his side. Stafford called out to his buddy three or four times, but Phillips never answered or moved.
"When I saw Phillips die, I looked down and was bleeding pretty good, that’s probably the most scared I was at any point," Stafford said. "Then I kinda had to calm myself down and be like, ‘All right, I gotta go try to do my job.’ "
The soldier from Parker, Colo., loaded his 9 mm handgun, crawled up to their fighting position, stuck the pistol over the sandbags and fired.
Stafford saw Zwilling’s M-4 rifle nearby so he loaded it, put it on top of the sandbag and fired. Another couple RPGs struck the sandbag wall Stafford used as cover. Shrapnel pierced his hands.
Stafford low-crawled to another fighting position where Cpl. Jason Bogar, Sgt. Matthew Gobble and Sgt. Ryan Pitts were located. Stafford told Pitts that the insurgents were within grenade-tossing range. That got Pitts’ attention.
With blood running down his face, Pitts threw a grenade and then crawled to the position from where Stafford had just come. Pitts started hucking more grenades.
The firefight intensified. Bullets cut down tree limbs that fell on the soldiers. RPGs constantly exploded.
Back at Stafford’s position, so many bullets were coming in that the soldiers could not poke their heads over their sandbag wall. Bogar stuck an M-249 machine gun above the wall and squeezed off rounds to keep fire on the insurgents. In about five minutes, Bogar fired about 600 rounds, causing the M-249 to seize up from heat.
At another spot on the observation post, Cpl. Jonathan Ayers laid down continuous fire from an M-240 machine gun, despite drawing small-arms and RPG fire from the enemy. Ayers kept firing until he was shot and killed. Cpl. Pruitt Rainey radioed the FOB with a casualty report, calling for help. Of the nine soldiers at the observation post, Ayers and Phillips were dead, Zwilling was unaccounted for, and three were wounded. Additionally, several of the soldiers’ machine guns couldn’t fire because of damage. And they needed more ammo.
Rainey, Bogar and another soldier jumped out of their fighting position with the third soldier of the group launching a shoulder-fired missile.
All this happened within the first 20 minutes of the fight.
Platoon leader 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and Cpl. Jason Hovater arrived at the observation post to reinforce the soldiers. By that time, the insurgents had breached the perimeter of the observation post. Gunfire rang out, and Rainey shouted, "He’s right behind the sandbag."
Brostrom could be heard shouting about the insurgent as well.
More gunfire and grenade explosions ensued. Back in the fighting position, Gobble fired a few quick rounds. Gobble then looked to where the soldiers were fighting and told Stafford the soldiers were dead. Of the nine soldiers who died in the battle, at least seven fell in fighting at the observation post.
The insurgents then started chucking rocks at Gobble and Stafford’s fighting position, hoping that the soldiers might think the rocks were grenades, causing them to jump from the safety of their fighting hole. One rock hit a tree behind Stafford and landed directly between his legs. He braced himself for an explosion. He then realized it was a rock.
Stafford didn’t have a weapon, and Gobble was low on ammo. Gobble told Stafford they had to get back to the FOB. They didn’t realize that Pitts was still alive in another fighting position at the observation post. Gobble and Stafford crawled out of their fighting hole. Gobble looked again to where the soldiers had been fighting and reconfirmed to Stafford that Brostrom, Rainey, Bogar and others were dead.
Gobble and Stafford low-crawled and ran back to the FOB. Coming into the FOB, Stafford was asked by a sergeant what was going on at the observation post. Stafford told him all the soldiers there were dead. Stafford lay against a wall, and his fellow soldiers put a tourniquet on him.
From the OP, Pitts got on the radio and told his comrades he was alone. At least three soldiers went to the OP to rescue Pitts, but they suffered wounds after encountering RPG and small-arms fire.
At that time, air support arrived in the form of Apache helicopters, A-10s and F-15s, performing bombing and strafing runs.
When the attack began, Walker was on the FOB. He grabbed an M-249 and started shooting toward a mountain spur where he could see some muzzle flashes. Walker put down 600 to 800 rounds of ammunition.
He got down behind the wall he was shooting from to load more ammo and was told they were taking fire from the southwest. He threw the bipod legs of his machine gun on the hood of a nearby Humvee. A 7.62-millimeter caliber bullet struck Walker’s left wrist, knocking him to the ground. A soldier applied a tourniquet to Walker and bandaged him.
Walker and two other wounded soldiers distributed their ammo and grenades and passed messages.
The whole FOB was covered in dust and smoke, looking like something out of an old Western movie.
"I’ve never seen the enemy do anything like that," said Walker, who was medically evacuated off the FOB in one of the first helicopters to arrive. "It’s usually three RPGs, some sporadic fire and then they’re gone … I don’t where they got all those RPGs. That was crazy."
Two hours after the first shots were fired, Stafford made his way — with help — to the medevac helicopter that arrived.
"It was some of the bravest stuff I’ve ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that — getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head … It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ’ em off."
Stafford offered a guess as to why his fellow soldiers fought so hard.
"Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don’t want to come in and try to get us."

Two of these men were my patients this past week with Jessica, my nursing student. I heard the story straight from them. Of all the wounded soldiers I've seen, one of these guys was the first to make me cry for him. I saw him the day they landed in Germany and when I sent the one to the states on Friday, I was looking at a whole new person. I hope he's doing well.

Happy 4th of July!

I had a great day today. I haven't had such a great day in a long time. I don't know what it was. I kept thinking it might be my new multi-vitamin that says on the label "contains as much caffiene as a cup of coffee" when I dont' drink coffee. But, I think there is more to it. I started off my day by going to work. At work, I was told, "you're on Charlie side"... umm.. we closed Charlie side awhile ago, that meant there were a lot of patients. I sent one of my favorite patients back to the states, moved my other patients to Delta so we could close Charlie and picked up another patient who i later discharge, gained another patient from the air evac. Now, it's a holiday in the hospital so people aren't there!! I LOVE working holidays. I was walking around the hospital in unauthorized uniform allll day and I loved it. It was so easy to get my job done. Well, we have a few distinguised visitors come through. the first one... sorry, I don't know who he was but he was escorted by a full bird. The second visitor was Gary Sinise (apollo 13, forest gump...). He talked with some of our soldiers and took pictures with some staff. At this point, I was moving patients, working both sides of the unit, getting pain meds, pulling other medications, and I had NO CLUE who he was. Finally, I saw him and thought, "why do I know that guy??... huh, weird, whatever." Then I realized who it was and was just in time to dive into a group photo that will hopefully be put up on medshare soon. I had such a crazy day even the staff realized something was wacko with me. I was very animated and always running around.
Then, I went to Ramstein Air Base for the FIREWORKS!! I went with Julie, Michele, Inga, her husband, and her son. We ran into many people we knew and we snagged a perfect spot on the ground infront of the ramp. Gary Sinise and his band were putting on a concert so we got to listen to that before it got dark enough for fireworks at 10:30. The fireworks seemed a little far away and within a narrow scope of view but there were fireworks I'd never seen before and a good variety. I was with such a good group of friends that I wasn't disappointed at all. We walked allll the way back to the cars afterwards and I got home at midnight. It was suprisingly easy to get off base.
As of right now, I am being called off from work tomorrow because I have so many holidays owed to me. Unless the next 4 hours create complete chaos and they need me, I get tomorrow off to prepare for the arrival of my mom, Bob, Cameron, and Nick. I am also completely excited that I am getting an NSTP cadet. I was asked today to take over for someone and I can't wait to meet her. She's going to be here for 4 weeks. She'll be with me on all of my shifts and have the same days off as me. I can't wait to teach so much that I'm sure nursing school hasn't gotten to yet. I just remember that NSTP was the only thing that made me finish nursing school and I was so much more prepared for senior year that my teachers all were shocked I was the same person. I hope I can offer an amazing experience to her. Germany is absolutely a good place to get it too. It also means I get the pick of OEF/OIF for the next month!! And, she'll go from days to nights with me and get the experience of both. YAAAY!

Air Evac

A few weeks ago, I went on an Air Evac to the states with a patient from downrange. He had tried to commit suicide so he needed a 1:1 attendent. He also had entry and exit wounds, dressing changes, and a chest tube so they decided a medial attendant would be a good idea. I was already going to the states on Monday, so why not leave Sunday instead? At first, we thought he was going to Walter Reed in DC. Which would have been AMAZING. I would have gotten into Seattle a day early!! Perfect... or so I thought. When the manifest came out, he was going to Fort Gordon, GA. Which meant an extra day of traveling and I would get into Seattle a day late. However, this experience doesn't happen very often so I knew I had to jump on the offer. I was lucky that I was already packed and ready to go beacuse I was so excited to get to the states. I had a rough night calling American Airlines to try to change my ticket because you can't change a country of origin on a ticket. I called 3 times, talked to 3 different people before someone would sympathize with me. I got my ticket cancelled and reissued with the price difference... which was hardly anything at all, but it worked. I'd already called LRMC freaking out because it looked like i was going to have to spend another 1000 dollars to get myself from objective to Seattle and American wasn't working with me. Then i got some advice from CDR Hughes and felt better and went to get as much sleep as I could.


8am on Sunday I arrived on the unit. We did one last dressing change because on the flight you can't take dressing down, you can only reinforce. Then got his stuff together and went down to the loading bay. We waited for awhile to get on the buses. The buses have been modified to take litters. Yes, we still use litters. All the middle is just transport, once we were on the plane I met the flight nurse in charge of my patient. We agreed that as medical attendent I was in charge of all his care and his medication administration and charting. I had a seat right behind him. The flight was 9.5 hours. I had been at a party with Gabe the night before so I didn't get a whole lot of sleep so when he slept, I slept. The flight crew fed my sweet tooth for snickers bars by having a whole box of them. I only had 2...

We landed at Andrews AFB and spent the night at the Aeromedical Staging Facility. Kind of like a hosptial, but not. They had everything we needed and I stayed there too in my own bed. It was a very nice unit. It looked more like a hotel than a hospital ward. There, I talked to the staff to figure out how I would get from my objective to Seattle. They said, "hey... the flight you're going on comes back here tomorrow, get a flight from DC" they called the terminal, the terminal said "sure, she can stay on the plane, no problem. 100% book the ticket" (there was 150 dollar ticket difference between Atlanta and DC... not to mention I was going to Augusta NOT Atlanta... $749 one-way from Augusta to seattle.. dream on ) So i book my ticket. Wonderful. I got a great night's sleep and th next morning we were on our way on a C-130 down the east coast.


We made 4 stops before we got to Augusta. I felt SO SICK. I can only imagine how my patient was feeling. Diesel fuel fumes are not my favorite. Well, here's where the trouble starts. There's no nurse to make a trade on the patient with just the ambulance with an EMT, so I have to go to the hosptial to hand off the patient. The flight crew and the PAX terminal at objective don't know I'm supposed to be on the plane going back, the departure terminal never changed the manifest to include my return. So, the charge nurse doesn't want to hear anything about it, she's pissed as anything that she didn't know about this, the terminal tells me they didn't hear of any changes from origin and they can't change it now, and the flight crew wants to wait for me but there's no communication between me and the crew once i leave the airport. So, off I go with my bags to the hosptial and no known way of getting back to DC.


I get to the hospital at 5:30pm and my flight from DC is 5:45am the following morning. We called the airport, the 111 flight did indeed take off again (even though they were 90 minutes ahead of schedule). The next military flight doesn't leave until Wednesday (it's Monday) The hospital staff doesn't know what to do with me beacuse they don't know if PAD or if liasons are supposed to take care of me. There are no available rooms at the lodging and everyone is calling anyone they can think of to figure it out. I'm still trying to get back to DC tonight! The best they had come up with was for me to stay with a SQD leader in the barracks and drive me the next morning with a group already going to DC. Not sounding good...I didn't have access to a computer so I couldn't get to expedia or anything. I had to decide if money was time or if time was money and how worth it was getting to Seattle at 10am tomorrow. We finally got a hold of a PLT SGT who could get on a computer. By now, it's 6pm. There's a USairways flight to NC from Augusta at 7:30pm. I said, "Ok, take me to the airport (the same one I just came from) I will talk to them when I get there."


So, I'm at the airport, I'm still in uniform, and I tell my story to the people at the ticket counter and she laughed sympathetically. Granted, I'm Georgia, they LIKE the military unlike some other states. So she changed my ticket free of charge from DC to Augusta (and didn't even charge the difference in the ticket). At this point, Augusta is the most beautiful airport I'd ever seen, they had been beyond helpful and understanding. I spent the night in the North Carolina airport and got on my plane connection from NC to SEA the next morning. After 3 days of travel, I finally got to Seattle. In the end, it probaby worked out for the better... I didn't have to ride the C-130 back to DC... that is a miserable aircraft.

I'm a real nurse now...

I'm a real nurse now! As of the end of my shift today (which went FAR too long past change of shift) I am no longer on orientation! I will be taking my own patients (which I was already doing)but, that's not the point! The only thing that happens now is more staff get to take more holidays! Haha! So, we'll see what happens. I get to come back to the states soon anyway so I'll get some time on my "own" and then get a vacation! I haven't had too many OIF/OEF patients that are coming in with battle injuries but one of them today who came from the OR right at change of shift was an SF soldier (rugged and handsome as they all are) who got shot through both legs and blew his hand up trying to throw and enemy frag grenade away from himself. I guess he's being submitted for a silver star. Right at change of shift PACU brought him down still dopped up, with a rectal probe up his butt, and with out of control pain. (NOT COOL). PACU just decided they wanted to go home because it was 1900 so they sent us a patient still recovering from general anesthesia...So, he's why I stayed late. There were 3 of us trying to get his pain under control so that night shift could do everything else they needed to do.

So... now that I've talked about an SF soldier who got blown up... guess who got selected for SF!!?! Gabe, of course. I knew he'd do very well. He got back last Wednesday from selections as a selected candidate. He's beat up, bruised, and physically exhausted, but he's in one piece and he's going on for more. He's back in the states now for leave to visit his family. If we'd communicated better we could have timed our leaves so that I connected through NYC and we could have gone to see Wicked! Currently, my plan is to go see it in London very soon. The permanent production in Stuttgart is in German....so London is the closest English production. When I come back on leave there's a tour group in San Antonio... but there's no reason to go to San Antonio so I'm out of luck. Since I finally finished the book I'm very anxious to see the show.

A few days ago I went with Julie to Pirmasens. What is Pirmasens? It's a city. Just a plain old German city. It has some very pretty architecture, a few museums, but best of all... It has a great walkplatz. Julie and I walked up and down the cobblestone hauptstrasse and went in all sorts of stores. Of course we caved in and shopped at H&M... which I feel silly doing because I know it's in the states and the states run on the dollar.. but, I was conservative. Then we sat outside at a cappucino and ice cream cafe. We ordered spaghetti eis. We shared two. The first was vanilla eis on top of whipped cream with chocolate sauce, white chocolate shavings and bananas. The second was vanilla eis on top of whipped cream with strawberry sauce, white chocolate shavings and blue berries, raspberries, strawberries, and I think cranberries. Both were excellent. And yes, the ice cream looks like spaghetti. It was lots of fun.

I have been catching up on my scrapbooking as best I can. I seem to have lost most of the pictures from senior year of college. I'm hoping beyond all hope that there are copies on the dell laptop I left in the states. I also need to go buy more paper and stickers. There really aren't scrapbooking stores out here that I've found... and the Euro makes it that much sillier to buy scrapbooking frivolities here.

I'm very tired, yesterday and today were CRAZY. I was out cold before 9pm last night and tonight might be heading down the same path.

Rhine River Bike Trip

Starting off.. I came here without a bike. The weather has gotten so nice in the past few weeks that all I could think about was getting a bike to ride around. So, on Saturday, I went on a hunt for all sorts of things that I needed. I wanted to install my Golf's CD player so I could listen to music, I wanted a bike, I needed groceries, I wanted to hunt for a 220 lamp... so i went searching for a bike. I went to BXtra first so that I could price in dollars. Saw some bikes that might have been ok but there was no one around for service so i went exploring for a CD player attachment. I met this British guy at Saturn where I was looking for the CD attachment who recommended a German bike shop called Conrad in downtown K-town. He said he'd had really good service from his experience. So, off I went into downtown K-town to look for a German bike shop on an off street of the ped mall. I got really lucky that I turned the right direction and saw it 3 blocks from the parking space I found. Luckily enough, the guy spoke some English and with my little bit of German we figured it out. He was very nice and very helpful. I found a bike that was comparatively priced and the right size and I rode it up and down the block a few times to test it out. SOLD. I was very happy.

That night, Emily and I made Lasagna at her house in a round dish which is an eventful thing with square noodles. We then met up with a group from the hospital to see 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum' on Kleber at the KMC community theater. I was told by CDR Lowe that one of the girls on the opposite team had been in the last production while working the same schedule we have. I'm going to have to keep an eye out on the 08-09 auditions. It would be really fun. It's very obviously community theater, you can tell who has never been in a show before and who are the senior actors of the production, but that's the charm of community theater. We'll see what happens. Afterwards, we went to Sam Kullman's, a 50's American-style diner for appetizers and drinks.

Yesterday, I went to Bingen with a group of 7 other people from work. We met on post and rode our bikes the few kilometers to the K-town train station where to got on a train and rode an hour and a half to Bingen. From there we hopped on or bikes and took the trail along the river 30km to St. Gord. we stopped frequently along the way to take pictures and there was the threat of rain the whole way. If it had been any warmer we would have been unfomfortably warm. We saw many many old castles and old ruins. It was very quintessential Germany. We stopped at a trail-side kiosk and had a picnic with drinks and took a moment to just enjoy the day. it was 30km to our objective. When we turned around we got more spread out as people were getting tired. At one point, we heard there was a break down at the back of the group. A good while later, we see the tail end rolling up and Emily is being pulled on her bike by a bungee cord I brought by Gill, one of the young guys with us. She has no pedal on her right side. We really only had just turned around. We still had a good 20 kilometers left to the train station. Off they go ahead of the group, they were really making good time because they left everyone in the dust. I cought up to them and when the rest of the group met up with us CDR Hughes had this bolt with him from a tired in the river that he'd spotted. We took a break and he made Emily a make-shift pedal. It lasted the rest of the bike trip to the train station and some of the way home from the K-town train station. There are a few long big hills from the train station to post and there was no hope for this bolt on those hills.

Once we got back, I felt like I could hardly walk. My ass and my legs were on fire and I felt like a giant bruise. We went and grabbed dinner on post and then went on a big hunt for ice cream. It was getting late so everywhere we went had just closed. We ended up at the commissary buying Ben&Jerry's. I had been craving cookie dough all day so I wound up with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. It was a great snack for the walk back to my car. Now that I have this bike and need to take it places I'm afraid to get rid of the Subaru because there is no way the bike will fit in the golf and I'm the only one of my friends (except Nate'n Michelle with their SUV) who has a car that can fit bikes.

Today was a LAZY day. Well, I've cooked and cleaned and done some laundry, but it was a stormy day so I took in stride and watched a movie on the couch also. Gotta relax a little bit before I go to work tomorrow, it's my policy. I need to mentally gear up for going to work. I got my hopes up that they'd move me to a different unit when we shut down 'C' side and rerranged a lot of staff on the med-surg units. But, now I know they're not. I'm a little disappointed but I knew I wasn't on the target list to begin with. My head nurse even refers to it as 'doing time' on 10D...that's just want I want to heard to make me excited to come to work every day. On a good note, Gabe is supposed to come back on Wednesday afternoon for the day before heading off to Spain and NYC, so I'm anxious to see him. He has only been gone 2 weeks, but it feels like longer. The good part is, I haven't heard from him. No news at SFAS is good news. So, he's got 3 more days of SFAS and he's done!

Well, I made the mistake of talking about cookie dough and now i want to make some to take to work tomorrow for my team. Off I go to clean before taking some more 'me time' tonight and negotiate making cookies with myself.

Settled in, finally

Last night I finally had a housewarming party. Well, sort of. It was a combination of a lot of things. FMO finally picked up the temporary furniture so I went on a mad cleaning spree, Gabe left this morning for SFAS, and Michele is positively pregnant. We saw pictures last night of an 8-week old peanut. It was weird to see. I also got a letter this past week that says I have been assigned through the professional filler system (PROFIS) to the 47th Combat Support Hospital (CSH) out of Ft. Lewis, WA. So, when 47th CSH deploys, I will be going with them. So many events lead to a great reason to have people over. I made Emily's famous caramel oatmeal bars, lasagna, and other appetizers. It went well. I'm no professionally trained chef like Michele, but I can at least follow a recipe. I stayed up all day after working night shift and tried to stay up as late in to the night as I could to spend time with Gabe. I didn't last very long. I was exhuasted. So, I sent him off this morning with treats and earplugs to SFAS. I know he'll do well, he's been working his butt off.

I start day shift on Monday. It will be good for me. I will get on a normal schedule and have all the time in the days to do the things I need to do. I will also be able to spend weekend evenings with my friends which is the disadvantage to night shift.

It's a gorgeous day out, I feel guilty for wanting to sleep, but I tried to stay up for two days straight. I'm exhausted. It's the one nice thing about living out in the country. I get the great sounds of nature on a nice day.

I'm addicted to 'Ugly Betty'. I'm so addicted I had to buy the season pass on itunes for season 2. I'm all caught up to the present and I can't wait until next week's episode. I still have not succumbed to AFN or German cable. We'll see how long I hold out.

Holland Tulip Express

This past weekend was a busy weekend. Friday night my unit had a party at the Vogelweh bowling alley. It coincided perfectly with the trip Emily and I were leaving for at 0130 in the morning. I showed up at the bowling alley around 11pm and bowled abismally for the 2 games I played. Emily had brought her amazing oatmeal carmel bars to entice everyone. There was no resisting. They're amazing. I've been bowling more here in the past 3.5 months than I have in the states it seems. I'm not getting any better, but I think I figured out that I'm using too light of a bowling ball. I did much better when i went from a 9lb ball to an 11lb ball. Who knew.

Anway, Emily and I got on a big German charter bus at 0130. The bus was nearly full and it's a long drive to the netherlands. I was ready for SLEEP. Sleeping on a charter bus in the aisle seat is a very hard thing to do. I'd brought my little pillow and slept hunched over on my backpack as best I could. I kept waking up because my face would start to tickle from the vibration of the bus. about 6 hours in we stopped at a hotel for an amazing breakfast. Breads, meats, cheeses, fruits, eggs, crepes, juice, all the yummy stuff. I think I had too much to each because my stomach was noisy after that. It was all paid for in the trip so i had to take advantage of it.

First, we stopped at a wooden shoe factory. We got to hear the history behind the wooden shoes, see a demonstration of how wooden shoes are made, and then we went on a hunt for wooden shoes of our own. Of course nothing is TOO individual, but Emily and I each found a pair of shoes for our home decor.

Next, we went to the cheese factory! I love cheese. It has a cute story behind it. Our tour guide was American. I was initially baffled because what was an American doing in a Dutch cheese factory. Apparently, she herself was on a USO tour to Holland some time ago as a young Air Force enlisted and came to this cheese factory, and got herself involved in milking the cows with the young son of the cheesemaker. Long story short, they got married a few years later and now she's a Dutch cheesemaker's wife. This factory makes gouda. They make all kinds of gouda. I bought 6 lbs of gouda ;-). Couldn't resist. I have a weakness for cheese.

After the cheese factory, we drove to the town of Volendam on the North Sea. Very much a sea side town. It was grey, wet, and WINDY. Mostly we were there for shopping and eating. We found a restaurant on the boardwalk and got out of the cold to eat. We bought tulips bulbs and each found some delft pottery that is so famous in Holland. It matches my dining room :-).

Finally, we went to the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse. It's a GIANT flower festival that is held from the 3rd week in March to the 2nd week in May. This year's theme is the 2008 Bejing olympics and inspired the design of the flowers and the art that was displayed. There were many different kinds of flowers but mostly tulips of all different colors. We were lucky that many of them were blooming. It was a bummer though that the weather was so dull. It really showed in the pictures that the lighting wasn't great. The garden covers 32 acres and we only had 2 hours. We hardly got through 1/4 of it. I wish we'd been able to spend more time there but we had to get on the road to get back to Germany. We got home around 0130 the following morning. It was a quick 24 hour trip.

Sunday, I went with Gabe, Julie, and Michele to Belgium. We swung through a furniture store and found that Gabe and I have extremely different tastes in furniture. Then we sat outside at a little cafe and had lunch. The different between Germany and Belgium is that things are OPEN on Sunday. It was a GORGEOUS day out. A day that I had wished for on Saturday. It had a wonderful pfannkuchen (pancake/crepe) with bananas, ice cream, and whipped cream. Then we drove to Tongaren, the oldest city in Belgium, just for Belgian waffles. Totally not your American Belgian walffle. These are a thich dough infused with sugar cubes and cooked on HIGH HIGH heat. They are so sweet and delicious. For a 3 hour drive, it was a good day trip. We got back around 8:30 and that was enough for one day. We were all pooped.

I'm currently at work, offically out of the "Nurse Transition Program", and offically on Orientation for 10CD. We've had a pretty slow night but our computer charting system went down for the last day so we've spent the better part of our shift translating paper orders back to computer orders and making them match. I'm as caught up as I want to be for 0330 in the morning so I took some time to do some catching up. I'm getting munchy, I can see how easy it is for nurses to get fat. I'm always looking to have something to chew on on night shift. Maybe once we switch to day shift I won't have time to think about eating.

Special Forces

These past two days have left me awed and emotional. I took part in caring for 3 Special Forces soldiers who came in from down range. These guys are late 20's/early 30's, handsome as anything, scruffy, and completely sweet. They were involved in an enemy encounter that resulted in many casualties. These 3 guys were comrades, friends, and family. There is a 4th in the ICU. They were roomed in the same room with each other making for quite a crowded space. They suffered various degrees of injury. One had two gunshot wounds to his leg and a possibly ruptured testicle; another might lose his arm because a bullet went straight through the artery and the bone. The 3rd lost a leg below the knee. They arrived from Downrange on Monday morning; we got them by Monday night from the ICU. CPT K spent the majority of her night trying to take care of all of them, which is much too much for one person. Because I had beyond boring patients to myself, I jumped in there with her. Pain was the hardest part of the night. These guys were sky high, looking us in the eyes, and doing everything we asked of them. they were dirty, sweaty, tired, hungry, in pain, and we were moving them, lifting them, poking them, pushing pain meds that just weren't doing it because these injuries need more than just morphine. They were all NPO at midnight because they were going to the OR this morning so they feasted for the 2 hours they had before we took everything away. Today they were joking around as best, they were thrilled to have AFN TV, but it was night and no one could sleep and there was always pain in the way of light heartedness. One of the soldiers was laying a soaking wet bed and he stood up long enough to pull the sheets out from under him and place new ones. His first comment was "I think I'm going to pass out, but I'm going to stand up, just hold my back." They will all hopefully fly home to Ft. Bragg on Friday, so I said my good-byes when I got off shift. In the 2 short nights that I was helping care for them, they probably did more for me than I possibly could have for them; I wish I could have done more. Guys like them are what make this place worth it. I came home today and cried. Pray for them.

Oh yes, and I received 12 packages from the mail room today. Talk about exciting.

Two hours to go

I'm currently sitting on a 10CD computer. It's 0508. I have had nothing to do since... oh say 0200. I have two patients and they're annoyingly stable for inpatient peoples. Maybe CPT Clarke is right about me needing more adrenaline. I'm biding my time slowly. I've checked e-mail, I've checked finances, I've researched cars, I've done all my charting, updated everything I'm supposed to update. I'm good to go. I'm also getting very sleepy. 12 hour shifts leave not much time for other things in life. This morning was the unit staff meeting. It was 30 minutes to the end of shift and it ran for 90 minute. I didn't leave LRMC until after 0900. I was very alert when I got home too. I'd gone to the mailroom, picked up 5 packages, and I wanted to open everything when I got home. I had to resist a few of them. As slow as tonight has been I'm starting to experience the weird things that happen on a med-surg unit. 1. my patient was being flirtatous with me and 2. there's a patient who keeps sneaking into the bathroom to smoke. We haven't caught him yet, but there's really only one person it can be and by the time the smell makes its way down to the nurses station he's long gone and looking occupied. Quite amusing.

I got busy this week after Gabe told me the news that he's reporting to SFAS (Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course) on 6MAY08. Yes, a month from now. Yes, it means he's moving back to the USA and No, he's not coming back to Germany. How do I feel about it? I don't know. I'm very excited for him, it's great he got accepted, it's a great chance for him but I am absolutely sad that I will not get to spend more time with him and see what might have happened. Oh what the Army does... Anyway, I completely rearranged the furniture in my downstairs. I flipped the entire thing around. I know know one ever saw what it was like the first time but it's backwards. I still have the ugly temporary furniture and it's now taking up toooo much room. I hung the pictures I bought myself for my birthday and I'm very excited about them. They're styled like vintage vogue fashion sketches. Very me. Very fun. I cleaned all my floors, cleaned my kitchen inside and out, and cleaned my bathrooms. At least I did somthing productive. This whole night is day and day is night thing is leading to a lot of productivity in my world that is unnatural for me.

Well, I must pretend to do some work. I have fluids to change, Antibiotics to hang, and a Dr. Pepper in the break room going flat. I'm most worried about the Dr. Pepper...

Busy Bee

It has been awhile since I've written. I suppose a lot has happened. I finished my rotation in the ICU. I saw too many young men blown to pieces. My 2nd patient was a 45% all over burn, very similar car to the 1st patient. I went to the or on this patient and watched the doctors explore his burns. He had been so swollen, with such severe compartment syndrome that the doctors gave him fasciotomies on all 4 limbs. His fingers were also bright red and black and rock hard. He was not going to keep them. My 3rd patient a blast injury patient. He was ok from the waist up, from the waist down he was close to losing everything. His legs have bones but almost no muscle was left. His sciatic nerve is a rope thick stump at the back of where the bottom of his butt should be. The doctors were taking out pounds of necrotic muscle. He was station here in Germay. His buddies came by to visit constantly. One of his buddies was so emotional with the knowledge that his friend was going to loose his legs that he burst into tears when he saw that his legs were still attached coming out of the OR. ICU is an adrenaline rush all the time. It never stops. You can never relax because you don't know when something is going to happen. CPT Clarke predicts that I will become an ICU nurse because I thrive on adrenaline and continuous motion. I'm not sure if she's right or wrong but ICU is better than the LRMC ER. The LRCM ER is merely a conveniency clinic. I worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Easter weekend. I am great at IV's, a made someone throw up by pushing Toradol a little too fast, I am great at vaginal exams, I had to be the person who couldn't find the fetal heart tones on a woman who lost her baby in a car accident, I did a lot of lab running, catheters... In general, the techs in the ER are so competent nurses are merely needed for assessments and meds. Might as well be a doctor...

We had 5 days in a row of SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW Easter weekend. It was NUTS. Beautiful, but nuts. Yesterday we had 65 degrees and sunny. It was GORGEOUS. Gabe and I took a looooong walk up my backyard trail to see where it went. It did not go where we thought it would but it led us to a small, shed sized, Catholic chapel. It's very very cute. We didn't go in because we were exploring on our walk and had to get back so I could go to bed. I started on 10C/D on the night shift last night. Night shift is awesome beacuse it's slow paced but boy oh boy does no one have a clue what I'm supposed to do. I had Commanders asking if I was a student, if I had a license, if I was just observing, if this was my only night, and I'm thinking "who DIDN'T tell you there was a new NURSE...RN=NURSE! coming on to the team tonight..." Quite frustrating. Anyway, it's going to be ok for a year. Sadly the inpatient numbers are increasing because of the increase in violence in Iraq. At least I'll stay busy all night. It's a lot like working at Harborview except the extent of the injuries cannot compare to a MVA. Hopefully I'll be ready to take an NSTP student by the summer.

New subject: This weekend a group of friends and I went to Idar-Oberstein. It's about an hour towards Trier and has a story behind the church that's built there. So, Once upon a time there were two brothers. One was the king and the other belonged to the church. They were both in love with the same woman. One day the brother took the king to the top of a cliff and pushed him off and killed him. He was so wracked with guilt that he built a church into the rock face of the cliff. It's only accessible through a tunnel in the rock. The church was finished and after a year a spring started to run through the middle of the church. The brother took that as a sign from God that he was forgiven. No one ended up with the girl...

So, besides the church, there are two castle ruins, one was the residence of the nobility, the other was a fortress. It was a very nice day trip. The trip started with 6 of us and ironically we were driving on the autobahn and a car drove up next to Gabe's car. Brett and Kat were in it and revealed their intentions to go to the same place. We had a wonderful dinner in Idar-Oberstein with really really good dessert and headed home happy and full. I have a 3 day weekend next week and hope to go exploring some more. I think the plan is Luxembourg, Brussels, Bruges, and back. I hope it works. All I asked for was to take a trip for my birthday. April 19th Emilyand I are going to Holland for the tulips on a day trip.

Krispie Kreme

Today was my first day on the ICU. It started off kind of rough. for one thing, Germany is trying to kill me. I had my eyes swollen shut and my throat irritated by allergens that exist only here. It took the ER on Sunday and the clinic on Tuesday to find someone who agreed with my self diagnosis and give me drugs that do something. When i went to the ER on Sunday I was unrecognizable my face was so swollen. I became Asian for a few days with puffy eye lids. I had two black eyes and a moon face. I haven't felt the greatest. Then I went to the ICU today to hear bad news right from the start. There was a 6 y.o. Iraqi boy that suffered blast injuries and was at LRMC for weeks. He was evac'd to the stats last week. He died in flight on the way into San Diego. They had to land in Colorado to pronounce him dead. I saw him last week walking and playing on the peds ward. So full of life. That hid the unit really hard. I only got to meet him for that one day. A lot of the staff from this ICU team had been key providers in his care. He was so close. The LRMC team handed him off to and Air Force team so no one who had been caring for him got to be there when it happened.
Then, I was assigned to a burn patient. I've never seen a burn patient before. I've had plenty of powerpoint presentations on it. He looked no different that I was prepared to expect, but the real thing is quite different. He was a 22 y/o OIF Army enlisted. He suffered burns from a blast injury to 38% of his body. He was here for a layover and was on a specially arranged flight to the burn unit at BAMC in San Antonio this evening. His therapy was easy. However, he was waking up, trying to talk with a tube down his throat, his face was mostly burned so his lips were so swollen and his eyes swollen. The picture of the young man on his military ID card is indistinguishable from the man in the bed. He wasn't in pain, but he kept trying to to move. His arms and legs were all wrapped and he was restrained to the bed. His room was kept at 80 degrees and he had heat lamps on. The first time we went in there were were in there nearly two hours in gowns. I had to step outside I got so nauseated. Partially from the heat, partially from all the drugs i'm taking, and partially because of the nature of what I was seeing for the first time. It was overwehelming the ventilator, the tubes, and 8 IV's hanging, the daughting task of changing completely soaked bed linens. He had to be watered, glucose checked, I&O's, tube fed, meds administered, assessed every 4 hours, flushed, repositioned, and calmed and reassured whenever he woke up and tried to talk. He flat out sad straight up in bed at one point. He was so swollen lip reading was very difficult. I got "water" and "how long" out of him. Other than that, I can only guess. He was extremely lucky. His back and front and groin were not burned. However, he was not wearing eye protection, you can see it in the pattern of his burn. Hes lucky he's got his sight. His face will heal nicely. We kept a thick layer of bacitracin on, hence the look of a krispie kreme glazed doughnut. I was in the room when he was awarded his purple heart. He has yet to find out that he was the only survivor of the 4 injured in the blast. The air evac team came in a few hours before flight time and we got him ready to go. He left at 1900 for his 14 hour flight to BAMC.
Today was a rough day to go home alone from. I decompressed in the shower, watched Runaway Bride, now I'm typing and I'm ready to go to bed. I have to get up and do this all over again tomorrow.