The End is Near

It is truly hard to believe that six months has passed since I started this blog!! Today we finished most of our handover to the NEW team...see the above photo...now it's feeling real that WE'RE DONE. Three more days and we're outta here!

But one of the reasons why it'll be sad to leave is our new friend Crystal, AKA MCpl Crazy, who arrived a couple of weeks ago (at the far right in the second photo) She is a dental tech who is here doing sterilization stuff for us and assisting the oral/maxillofacial surgeon whenever someone is unlucky enough to break something in their face. She loves Lucky Charms and has inspired old school dance-offs in the central sterilization room...she SO should have been on Roto 2 with us. Anyway, I'm sure she will have just as much fun with Roto 3, although let's face it, I don't think there's much chance she'll have them doing the running man and singin along with Salt n' Pepa in the back...

It honestly feels like such a short time ago that we were arriving here, going to the range having had no sleep and nearly passing out from wearing all our gear in 50 degree heat, getting a tour around camp and still having no idea where we were, living in the horrible BATs, learning our way around the OR, then getting shocked into reality when we received our first patients - a 3-year-old boy with a skull fracture and part of his scalp torn off when he was dragged by a car, a Canadian soldier with a terrible head injury, another with a broken leg, and it just kept coming and coming. These and other images will be in my head for a long time to come. The 12 year old boy who died from complications of his burns, the Afghan guy who walked in covered head to toe in blood from a gunshot wound to his lower jaw, complaining "it hurts!", all the guys involved in the A-10 strafing incident on September 4th, the bicycle-borne suicide bombing on September 18th, the eleven burn patients on October 3rd. The British soldier who came in hardly able to breathe with shrapnel in his neck, his blue eyes wide in panic. Our little sweetheart Nazia, who finally went home to her mom, recovered from her burns.

But there has been so much fun too - I can see one of our longtime patients, Haroon, from his bed with his broken leg, singing an Afghan song at the top of his lungs with Justin, one of the med techs, dancing around the ward. Robin, our ICU nurse from Detroit, trying to teach one of the interpreters how to do the electric slide...Joe, riding his bike behind the truck like a crazy man, or jumping on the back of a garbage trailer and accidentally unhitching it, watching the gator it had been attached to drive away. Mario playing the cowbell like Will Farrell from Saturday Night Live, Shelli-Dawn and Anne coordinating a covert attack on one of our orthopedic surgeons with water guns, all of us learning how to say "open your mouth", "take a deep breath!" in Pashtun, etc etc.

We have had t-shirts made (thanks Brenda!) that say "Afterghanistan Cyprus 2007" to wear when we are on decompression leave next week...I think it will be tons of fun but a big part of me wishes I was on a direct flight straight to Halifax. I can't wait to see my wonderful husband, and my babies who are no longer babies anymore - I can't wait to not have to hear about how Stephen put on his shoes saying he wanted to walk to Gan Tan to see Momma, or to have to tell him I'm not coming home quite yet when he asks on the phone "comin home today, Mommy?".

Not long now, I keep saying...no more meals at the DFAC, no more lineups for the phone, no more dust in my nose. Now that the end is near, I can't wait to get outta this place!

Medals

Had our medals parade yesterday...they were presented by the Commander of Task Force Afghanistan, Brigadier General Grant, and the Surgeon General, Brigadier General Jaeger. It was very cool to be standing out on parade with Chinook helicopters flying over as we received our recognition for the tour. General Grant gave quite a moving speech to say thank you to the hospital staff, and we celebrated after with pizza and beer. Another great memory to bring home!

Back here again...

I have returned to Kandahar Air Field, with a happy Christmas to remember, and I am getting rid of my jetlag ever so slowly. The trip back was just as long and tedious as those previous, however there were a few bonuses this time. I was able to see Amsterdam for a few hours between flights, which was really great, and later had a day and a half to spend with my dear friend Catriona and her family at my next stopover.

Now that I am back, I am ready to come home - we have very few weeks left to go and now the time seems long!! Thank goodness I had the majority of my tour done before I went home on leave.

Things at the hospital have been quiet other than the changing over of the surgical teams, both Canadian and Dutch. We were called in for a Canadian casualty this morning, and it was a not-so-pleasant welcome for me back to business here...this is why we are here, but with five months under my belt, I can say that it doesn't get any easier. The weather is getting nicer again, still pretty chilly at night but during the day it's climbing up to 20C. I can handle this! The bad part is that the dust is getting worse again, because it's been more dry.

The group that was here over Christmas had a good time I guess, with Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh, the band Jonas and Damhnait Doyle here to entertain them, and a visit from the Chief of the Defense Staff as well. There were a lot of great people back in Canada thinking of us over Christmas, and they showered us with care packages and gifts. It took me quite a while to go through the pile of gifts on my bed when I arrived back here!

I have tried to post a couple of photos but I don't seem to be able to do it from here...I will have to fix things up and show some more pics when I get home.

Well, it's just a matter of time now before I leave KAF for the last (at least it better be the last!) time...and it won't be long before you can take down all those yellow ribbons you've been wonderful enough to put on your trees!