Itching....

.... smallpox is starting to itch!!!! It's driving me crazy! The blister is just bigger than an eraser now and it's starting to weep. I was supposed to go to the Troop Medical Clinic (TMC) to have it "read" today because if it didn't take, they would have to re-administer it. Well, since I know it took and I'm going to have this evil thing for about 4 weeks, I feel that I am in no hurry to get it looked at. I might just do it in Tikrit. What a rebel.... hah.

We are also all just itching to get out of here. Today is Saturday. This is day 7 and we have nothing to do for the day. We woke up at 5, went to the gym and ran, went and got breakfast, showered, went to formation where we were released until tomorrow's formation, had a nursing meeting, then changed into our PT's and came to Starbucks- where we have been since. We're tired of the Dining Facility (DFAC) food and are debating Taco Bell for lunch.

I know everyone is waiting for pictures, but since I'm not settled and not on a secure network, I'm going to wait until I get to Iraq.
We had a meeting with our Clinical Nurse Officer in Charge (CNOIC) aka Head Nurse. Apparently we can't call her Head Nurse anymore. I will be starting on night shift working 12 hours shifts. We work 6 days on, 1 day off...at least for now. In theory, there could be one ICU nurse and one med-surg nurse per shift if we were to change over to a team schedule with 4 teams. We actually only have 3 ICU nurses and 4 Med-Surg nurses total. We do have LPN's, and Medics, but I'm not sure how many there are. We will also be covering the recovery room for the OR which apparently does 2 surgeries..........a month.

So, it sounds like I'm just going to pick up my bags and move my vacation to Tikrit. In what other world could you possibly get paid MORE than your normal salary for doing what I've been doing the last few days... virtually nothing. Granted, like MSG Palk told us, fire fighters are for the fires that might start, we're there for the trauma that might happen. Iraq is a waning battlefield, which is good, but as a nurse deploying to take care of troops, It's difficult to feel good about it and I know I'm not the only one here who feels this way. There's a sense of validity in going downrange to be the hooah nurse. Think Baghdad ER. Combat trauma, life saving operations, critical thinking to create something from nothing....not so much anymore, which i know is good; our soldiers aren't getting hurt in Iraq as much. But, it's hard to know that Afghanistan is the hotspot, all of those casualties go through Landstuhl, and I just left Landstuhl for my "vacation" in Iraq. You don't have to be a good nurse to go to Afghanistan, it's just luck of the draw. So, many of us here are struggling with the knowledge that while we are going to Iraq, our collegues, other nurses, even newer nurses, are going to Afghanistan to do the nursing care that we signed on the dotted line to do. However, the battlefield is ever changing, it is a battlefield, we are not going to be complacent. The locations we are being sent to are still seeing Trauma, there are elections happening in March, and as we are pulling out of Iraq, as things are being packed up and our numbers decreasing, attacks could start rising again. We just don't know. Well, that wasn't a tangent I meant to get on.

On a completely different note, I think I found my wedding dress. There are 3 stores it might be at. One in Lakewood, WA. One in Gilbert, AZ, and one in South Carolina that I can order online. I haven't called the boutique locations for a price estimate, but I think the SC location might be the winner from the reviews of her store and from her efficient and courteous long-distance communication. I just hope I can order the right size on the first try!

Joe is in Prague this weekend. Since our communication has been quite limited and the communication we have had has been a lot about Orsino, we're quite anxious to get back to talking about our wedding and making more plans. Right now I'm not sure if I'll get back in early August or late August. It might be cutting it close to hope to get married August 28th, but until they tell me otherwise, there is no reason I should be there too much longer than 180 days from the day we arrive in Iraq. My replacement will not be requested until 90 days out, so we'll see. In theory our replacements have already been identified, but they won't be activated until the CSH places the request. So, the key to this ceremony is going to be simplicity!

Well, I'm going to surf the internet some more.