Christmas... New Years.. and then some

10 January 2010

Christmas was a pretty uneventful day. It felt a lot like being on my mission where the holiday is what I make of it. I read the nativity in the Bible and Book of Mormon on Christmas eve, slept in Christmas morning (hopefully it will be the last time I get to do that for a long time.) It was hard to fight off the feeling that it was the same day as any other here in Afghanistan. I can it the “Monday Phenomenon”. That is where every day feels like Monday and each day is little more than an arbitrary title granted to a defined 24 hours of time.

I was able to talk with my family on the phone on their Christmas morning. My favorite 45 seconds of the year is that magical time when little kids come screaming down the stairs and see what Santa Claus has left for them. To see their eyes light up and have their faith once again confirmed that there is something greater out there that recognizes their sacrifices of bad behavior for a glimmer of hope of toys and joy. It was so fun to hear Audrey squeal with delight and Zachary proclaim the coolness of his toys. I think Sydney is getting to the age of reason and Ainsley is approaching that point as well. It was fun to hear each of them. It is almost a sacrifice to hear and experience this afar. Sometimes it is easier just to insulate yourself against the heartache of being so far away and bury your head in the “Monday Phenomenon”. On the other hand you can open up a bit and join in and experience what you can, for a price. The best part came the next evening when my kids and Sarah were in College Station with my parents and I was able to see them on the internet. I loved watching them open their presents.

This year, I bought Sydney a pair of diamond earrings. She has been too scared to get her ears pierced. Sydney is an absolutely amazing little girl. She has an inner (and outer) beauty and cannot be described. It brings tears to my eyes to consider the thought that she is more than half way done with me as her father. In the next decade she will leave home, possibly find another man to replace me and carry on with her life. I will never, ever in all eternity forget holding her for the first time when she was born. Her little eyes so wide open, and me falling so deeply in love with this little one. I promised her that I would never, ever leave her or hurt her. I can only feel just by virtue of our own existence, that she could only promise to one day leave me.

New Year’s Day was pretty busy around here in Delaram. When I had arrived here they had seen a total of about 70 trauma patients over the span of several months. Over New Years, we saw about 18 patients. This was a pretty significant surge for the team here.

One of the patients illustrates, in my opinion one of the reasons why we are here, and the difference between us and the Taliban. He was riding a motorcycle away from a spot where and IED had just gone off. He was then shot off of the motorcycle by one of our snipers. A great shot by all accounts. Upon arrival to us he was billed as an Enemy Prisoner of War. He was dying when he arrived. We quickly got him to the operating room where we explored his abdomen, stopped the bleeding and got him warmed and resuscitated. He was promptly evacuated out to a higher level of care. He was given a large amount of blood and products, enough that some questioned whether or not we should be expending such resources on an enemy. Our response was that we treat everyone the same, especially the prisoners.

Several days later, we come to find out that he was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was actually the son of one of the local village elders, who was pretty upset at his son being shot by the American’s and being an accused Taliban. We smoothed things over and his family was brought to the FST where they were introduced to the team that saved their son’s life. They were profoundly grateful and the fact that we saved their son, made all the difference. This is why we do what we do.

Being a medical professional in a war zone is quite an amazing experience. I say medical professional because this experience is not unique to surgeons. We are only as good as the team around us. Medics (in the field and at our FST), CRNA’s, OR techs, and admin guys included. If one of these links is weak, the whole chain will fail, and people will die. I have told my guys many times, that they need to be proud of what they are doing. When they fill out their soldier evaluations, they can put “Today I saved someone’s life”, and when people look at that they will reply, “Oh good, they did their job.” People will not understand what they did here, only them. On a deeper level, we are the answers to the prayers of thousands of people. When mothers, fathers, sons and daughters go to bed at night and ask for God to protect their Daddy or Mommy and to bring their Daddy or Mommy home alive; God doesn’t send angels with wings and trumpets, he sends an 18 year old medic with a tourniquet and airway. He sends a surgeon with a #10 scalpel and silk ligature. He sends a CRNA with a rapid blood transfusion machine and a whole stack of blood. We function as the angels and the answers to their prayers. I take great pride in that.

The past couple of weeks in Delaram have been really good. I have learned to appreciate our team at Shank, and I have seen things that I wish we had at Shank. I am going to include some photos of Deleram. This first is the gym. Wow! The gym… What to say about the gym. It is so ghetto that you will be able to lift at least one more set, just because it is so ghetto. When it rains, it turns into a mudpit, when it isn’t raining it is dusty and hot. This FOB is tucked right next to a village, which is run by the Taliban. They really, really, don’t like us there. Surprisingly, they don’t get much indirect fire here. There is a pretty decent running track with some rocks and a couple nice hills. The track goes around the garbage burn pit. That makes for good pulmonary function. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate running.

Picture 1 is the gym. Enough said. No words needed.

Picture 2 is a nice picture drawn by an astute young artist named Victor. Let’s just say that Victor “gets it”. Funniest card I ever received. Notice the army guy with some huge gun. I laughed for about 10 minutes looking at this one.

Picture 3 is of one of many fly traps we put up all over the place in Delaram. Yes it is covered with flies and this is after about 3 days up.