Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sunday again

Well this week I was reading through my Bible and this passage just jumped out to me, it seems like that has been happening a lot lately.

2 Corinthians 2:12-13

12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

I got to speak to a friend some more about the faith the other night, and we had a few disagreements as will happen. I just wanted to share with you one passage and thank the Lord for the clarity that only He can bring. I hope all of you have a lovely day.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Is that a wig?

One of our friends came over from ICU, Intensive Care Unit, the other night. I saw her and I decided we needed to get some pictures of that. You see her here with Kim, her name is Melissa. This hair piece made quite a stir.

Then Kim had to try it on.

Then I had to try it on.

So that was part of our evening I will share the rest later. :)

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Sky watch friday

I stepped out of my living area one day to go to work and there it was over the top of our cement walls! Hope you enjoy it.

Have a great Sky Watch Friday!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Lunar eclipse

As you guys may or maynot know we had a Lunar eclipse about a week ago. We were all leaving midnight chow, when we noticed it. Very cool, it was quite clear that night so we could see it very well. We were all standing there looking up at it when Kim asked me take some pictures. I got out my camera and gave it my best shot, unfortunatly this sort of picture was beyond my little camera.


So when Kim looked at the pictures, she said I was doing it wrong, and took the camera. She changed the settings around a little and took another picture. This is how it came out.

Well we can't all be good at photography, but me and Kim are good at lots of other things.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Gods gift to me

You know how they say "that guy thinks he's Gods gift to women"? Well I know Steve is Gods gift to me. I say it all the time, even when he is making me mad, there is no man on earth that fits me so well as he does. So today even though its the day after his B-day I just wanted to say that to everyone and wish him a happy birthday. The reason I wanted this to be on my sunday post is because I would also like to thank God for this wonderful man.


Happy Birthday baby!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Pancake Breakfast

Well it is starting to be a tradition for night shift, all the sections, to get together for the pancake breakfast every sunday morning. For me since I'm on nights this is the end of shift on saturday, even though its sunday morning. The dining facility (defac for short) will make strawberry, blueberry or plain pancakes and they are wonderful. There is always a long line but its worth it, the military usually does a pretty good breakfast.
So we all go through the line and then sit down and talk about our shift, sometimes complain about the patients. We talk about who is going home on leave and look forward to the time when we all get to go home. Its really fun, I wanted to share some pictures I took of the last one.




See look even some of the more important people came out to join in.
I'm glad I got to share our sunday morning with all of you.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Sky watch friday

Well its been another week, and I'm glad to say they are going by quickly. Today I would like to show a picture for my Sky Watch that has clouds. And as you may or may not know clouds aren't something we get to see a lot of around here.


Hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Can't really tell

Today I was hoping for the help of one and all of my loyal readers. The other day we had a visit from a very important guest on our ward.

The special guest is the one on the right. Of course the other person in that picture is special too, just in a whole other way. This little super hero came in the other day to wish all of our patients well, and bring a little joy to their hearts. My dillema is I think I might recognize this super hero. You tell me if you think I'm right.


This soldiers name is Tabitha, and she is one of my friends. Very nice young woman, but is she super? I haven't ever identified a super hero, do you get some kind of reward for that kind of thing?

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Its Sunday


For awhile now I haven't worked on my relationship with God much. It was an area of my life I was and am occasionally ashamed of. Don't get me wrong I have never been ashamed of God, I have been ashamed of myself, for not spending more time with God. I have only recently realized that there are always going to be area's of my life that I am ashamed of, but that they should all include God somehow. That only through Him do I have any hope at all. My hope is in the Lord.
Lately I have been talking a lot with a friend at work about Christianity. This friend has encouraged me to delve into my Bible, and I have been reading it a lot more lately. I'm not really sure if its the circumstances or having a Christian friend, I guess it doesn't matter, as long as I'm doing it. Well I was reading through recently and I found a passage that means a lot to me, and I wanted to share it. Its Romans 5:20-21;
1 The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 2 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through reghteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I was brought to that passage through my studies, those ones stood out to me, but that whole chapter of Romans is worth a gander. I hope you all have a great sunday, thanks for reading.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Silly soldiers



Here are some pictures of what may appear to be a normal CHU. But what really lurks beneath the surface? Is it really a man eating hole? So let me explain my paranoia. The other day we had a commanders call, and the commander told us that we should be careful if our doors are sticking. He said sometimes a sticking door can lead to you getting locked inside. So what exactly inspired him to let us know this? It could be, I'm not mentioning any names, that one of our soldiers got locked inside his CHU. And even though he beat on the door and called for assistance no one came to his aid until they noticed he was late for work. When we were in the commanders call one of my favorite officers asked in earnest, "doesn't your CHU have a window?" Which to my way of thinking was a very smart question.

But before you get the wrong idea, that I am picking on this soldier, let me share a little further. You may have noticed in the first picture that we have a lovely door handle there. well the reason it is so lovely is because its new, just installed yesterday. Why you ask? Well it may be because our door was indeed getting just a wee bit sticky. Occasionally it took a number of trys to escape from our chu. So I am just pointing out that if not for this one person getting stuck in his CHU we could be stuck in right now until morning.

DEFINITIONS:
CHU: Living area for soldiers in Iraq
Commander's call: When the commander schedules a meeting with his unit so he can give all all the latest stuff from higher up. Tell us what we did wrong and what we did right.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Sky Watch friday, with clouds!

Well this week I have an up to date picture of our sky here. Are you ready for this? We had clouds that day. I snapped the picture on the way to work. As some of you know I am now never without my camera.

Hope you enjoy my Sky Watch picture this week one and all. Have a great weekend.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

What is it with army medics?

Today I pose the question, why do Army medics always want to practice IVs on each other? I have to admit I am driven to practice on people who thought they were my friends. Is this some kind of Army phenomena? If so, what causes it? While I don't want to get carried away and I don't want any of my loyal readers to either, I think it's just to get better. This experience is my first in any kind of intensive care unit/ward. In the places I have worked before when I gave people Vi's or drew their blood it was always from the easiest vein I could find. Now I am starting to realize easiest isn't always best. If we are going to have someone with us for awhile its best to put the IV somewhere other than in the crook of their arm. You see, we have these machines you hook the IV bag up to that pump the liquid into the person at a certain speed. When a person has the IV in the crook of their arm and they bend their arm it stops the flow of fluids through that vein, and causes the machine to start beeping and it doesn't stop till someone comes to turn it off. I have had dreams about this beeping; more like nightmares! So I find the best place to put an IV is somewhere between wrist and elbow, not always an easy place. Some people have tons of veins in that area others don't have any that show.

Here we have an unsuspecting patient. Well that isn't true - he is neither unsuspecting nor a patient, but you know what I mean. He has lovely veins right there at the crook of his arm and they are so temping! But I went for one a little lower down where I wouldn't be disturbed by having to go and shut off his pump every five minutes.

So, here I am picking one of the harder veins, while of course being guided by the patient, because no medic can resist giving advice on how to stick a needle into people. Why is he wearing a head lamp you ask? We turn all the lights off so the patients can sleep - isn't that nice? So I was doing this by flashlight. I did get a successful IV on him and he got 1000 ml of fluid, so he was well hydrated. I have no pictures of me sticking a needle into him for two reasons; 1. I don't want anyone to know that I was abusing an NCO. 2. I made the officer that was taking pictures stop so I wouldn't get nervous.
So who else does IVs that works in medical in the Army? The question really is who doesn't? These days everyone that works in a hospital is expected to know how to do basic life support. That includes IVs. So while we were still in Texas I gave a little class to one of our supply guys and he managed a successful stick on one of the other guys that works in our ward.

So what is all that red stuff on his arm? Well that isn't important, what is important is that he got an IV successfully. It is also nice to know that even supply people can have the disease of wanting to stick needles into people. I think maybe some of you are wondering why wasn't I the one getting an IV in the third picture. Well to be honest some people question the existence of my veins. I will let anyone try since I have almost no nerves left in those areas, but it is often unsuccessful. I should explain to that when we are in school learning how to do all these things, we learn on each other I have quite a few scars, and no nerves. Well I hope everyone enjoys this post, and the special insight into life as a medic.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Sky watch friday

Well this week for my sky watch I cheated and I am taking an old photo from when we were in Texas. Hope you like it.

It seems like no matter where our unit has gone bad weather has followed. This is right before a tornado sighting, then we all went and stood in the bathroom near the showers till the alarm stopped going off. I still thought the picture was a beauty, I hope you all like it.

Well today....

Today I really don't have much to offer in the way of interesting things you don't already know about. So instead I have decided to just post a bunch of pictures! I don't have many right now, well thats a lie I probably have hundreds of pictures. I just don't know if they would all be very interesting. So here we go I will put up a few then we can talk a little more.

That is me and Kim at work, as you can see we were really busy that night. I think that night we had 2 patients, which is the least we have had since we have been here. We spent about 8-9 hours that night cleaning the floors and various other things on the ward. We had fun, and we were in a picture taking mood at that time.

This is Jen modeling our balacava which is army ear and cheek warmers. I have no idea if I spelled that right, sorry if I didn't. She looks a little silly in this one but we were in a silly mood.

As you can tell from the back ground and the green things this is when we were still in Texas. I was just browsing through my photo's and noticed that this is a particularly good one of both of them.
I am sure that most people fall in some kind of schedule where ever they are, I think I have found one. The only thing is here I think its best if I try and do some different things more often, to keep things interesting. I am sorry I didn't have anything really fresh or funny to write about today, I forgot to take pictures this week. I do have some idea's for other blogs though so stay tuned.