Reflection

I could not resist putting this pic on here. There is a camera crew here documenting some of the cases in the OR. We have had a couple of traumas over the weekend and the photographer gave me a couple of still shots of the cases, and this was in there. I thought it was pretty cool. Things here are ever changing, and a little bit of mystery added to my quasi Iraq routine is good!!

OR 5

Here is where we hang out when the sun goes down. This has been built by several surgeons over the different deployments. If you get on the roof you get a peek of the Tigris River and the lights of Balad outside the wire. It is strange because the base is very dry and dusty yet right outside the fence on the perimeter you can see different crops and vineyards all irrigated by the Tigris. Amazing what a little water will do for you. 

Balad Moon Rising

I promise I try to add to the blog more than is evident!! I can only get to this site via my in room wi fi and personal computer. Some days I get all the way to posting something others my connection cuts out.  I am trying to keep it current though!!

This is a picture from a place on top of the hospital called OR 5. There are 4 OR in the hospital and OR 5 is a "Big Boys" treehouse that has been built by surgeons on top of the hospital. I will show some pics of that next time. It is the place that surgeons hang out and smoke cigars, play cards and drink non-alcoholic beer.

The weather is interesting here...its always hot, but what does vary is how much sand is blowing around. If you can see the moon through the sand and dirt at night it sometimes has a cool and erie look. This I thought was a nice look so I went and got my camera. 

My Balad Set-Up

The top picture is one of the OR's, I did finally get to do a mandible fracture. The hospital has basically everything you need. Below is my house! It is with in these large cement T barriers and then surrounded by sandbags. I have all the essentials, bed, desk, tv, and most importantly a bathroom which I share. This is really a treat. Most people have to walk to the bathroom in a large bathhouse I am very fortunate. 

I have been getting into a routine, it basically revolves around working out, eating and sleeping. I just purchased wifi the other day it is spotty at best in my room. The blog has been difficult to contact for some reason. Uploading pics has also been difficult. I will try my best!!

Pictures from my 2 day stay in Al Udeid

The top pic is what people refer to as "the bra". Early morning or once the sun goes down people hang out here. There was free Wi Fi which was off and on. People would enjoy there 3 beer limit here. The evening I was here they had kareoke. Three beers did not get me singing!!! Maybe on the way out. The next pic is the tents we stayed in which was called transient housing. They crammed about 25 of us in these. Three rows of bunks. The nice thing was these things had a great A/C which was a relief.

The Mission...

Two days ago we were able to see how the "new group" of hospital personnel could respond to a mass casualty situation. It's very difficult, when what you do is surgery, but you only do surgery when people are getting hurt and suffering. So you don't want to be busy for the greater good of man kind, yet you can only read, workout, sleep, eat, and watch shows so much before you wish you had some work to do.

A local incident in our vicinity provided us with something to keep us busy. The tough thing was waiting to see what all was involved. We were first told of a possibility of 20 pts heading our way sometime at 0800. But due to mother nature (sand storm) and political red tape things kept getting delayed. Finally, at 1600 we recieved 12 pts by ground convoy. Talk about controlled chaos.

After the trauma czar evaluated each pt and got an idea as to who were immediate vs. delayed things started rolling and pts were zipped to the OR or taken to the CT scanner for further eval uation. After about 20 min there were 5 pts in the OR with various extremity injuries and abdominal injuries, unfortunately for me there were no facail injuries. But, I was able to find myself in the fracture stabilization procedure of a humerus fracture. The orthopedic surgeon let me place the external fixator device (just a little bigger than a mandibular external fixator!!) That is what is nice with Oral Maxillofacail Surgeons we make decent first assistants!!

I have been able to find the local cross fit group so that has been good. I will send more pics, it is a little painful since I can not get on the internet with my computer and I can not use a jump drive on this computer.

Still trying to get a routine.