Ramstein Rouges

This past weekend I took a trip to Baumholder. Not a very exotic trip location... it's the base for the infantry troops out here essentially. However, Gabe's rugby team, the Ramstein Rouges, were playing their first game. The weather was cold an windy. Apparently Baumholder is the Camp Bullis of German bases. It can be wonderful in Landstuhl and Baumholder will have snow :-). This day was a blustery one. The game was at 2 so we met the team on Ramstein and carpooled down early. There were a few other girls who were coming so I had someone to play with while the team was warming up. We went on a long walk around the post looking for the class six. Our plan was to get hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps to stay cozy... that failed. But we did find the shopette and Captain and Coke ;). The game was an 80 minute game using almost the whole team on the field all the time. I don't know about you, but I know nothing about Rugby. The team sadly lost 5 to 7 but it was their first game. Next weekend there is a tournament in Trier. I work my first day in the ICU on Sunday so I may or may not go. I think it would be fun but it just might not work.
After the game, we went to eat a mexican restaurant in Kaiserslautern before heading to Thursty Nelly's Irish Pub around the corner. Thursty Nellys is the Rugby team's sponsor and the team met up there. We took up a good amount of room in the newly established NO SMOKING bar (state-wide law just established). I was DD, which was fine with me, but there was a catch... the car I was going to drive was a stick shift. If you know me, you know that I've never driven a stick shift in my life other than with Steffie in the Mervyn's parking lot 4 years ago for 5 minutes before I got so frustrated with stalling out that I swore off manual transmission cars. This was going to be an adventure... not only was the drive going to be an adventure, but Gabe parked the car into the tightest spot possible to begin with. Now I had to get OUT of a tight parallel parking spot. The end of this story is a happy one. I drove all the way home without stalling out.

This is my last week on pediatrics. I've had a blast, I would really like to stay there. I start night shift on 10C/D in about 3 weeks so I might be awake when you stateside people I haven't talked to in forever are! Anyway, I've had a whole range of kiddos. I had a 1 m/o old last week who was admitted for bronchiolitis. I was giving a combination of 3 kiddos albuterol treatments every hour for 12 hours. I think I got more albuterol than they did. Anyway, this kiddo was having so much trouble breathing we had to transfer him before he crashed on us. He was really my first kiddo who was sick and wasn't getting better. We transfered him so fast I hardly had time to do the things that needed to get done. He turned so fast. It's really true how babies will hold out within normal limits until they crash. this kiddo was on the verge. I had him for a 3 days and we tried all different treatment regimes to get him to respond and nothing was working. I felt so bad for mom who was very upset by everything. The rest of that day I felt like there must have been something I could have picked up on earlier to change the course of his diagnosis. Probably not, he had a virus, viruses have to just run their course, but maybe there was something else.
My other kiddo, a beautiful 5m/o girl in the hospital for the same thing (it's just that time of year) has been here for over a week. She was getting worse too. She developed pneumonia and required constant o2. Today, I started weaning her off of oxygen and she stayed off oxygen for 9 hours before I handed it off to night shift. I hope she goes most of the night before she needs it again. I know she would like to go home. She's been a trip. Every time I come in the room she smiles and laughs. It's pick me up on the shift when you get smiles compared to the scared faces and crying I've gotten with older kids who remember them I stuck a needle into them and it hurt. I will miss peds.

In other news, now that I have my household goods, I have NO WHERE to put them. When they say German homes don't have closets, they mean it. No closets, not shelves, no bathroom cabinets... nada. Hopefully on Friday (my next day off) I will get the chance to go buy SOMETHING! I have greatly enjoyed sleeping soundly on my delightful queen sized bed. I have also learned the the bakery for my town happens to be on the corner of my street. Just a hope and skip down the road. It's going to be wonderful.

Oh, it also snowed ALL DAY today. It took me a good 10-15 minutes to desnow my car. I had a good 3-4 inches built up. Europe and the US also have different dates for daylight savings time. While yours happens to be this Sunday, mine is the 30th. So, until then, we will be one hour closer together.