I'll put my toes in the water. Toes in the sand. Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand. Life is good today. ~Toes by Zac Brown Band

Ah. An update. Well, here is goes.

Dad flew up. Movers came. Checked out of Bethesda. Got in the car and headed south! I wanted to stop in Wilmington, N.C. to take some pictures were they shot scenes in Dawson's creek. I'll pause for you to laugh. Anywho, I decided to leave earlier out of DC, so we got there in the middle of the night. Dad drove back and forth through Wilmington so I could sleep and then we were going to take pictures when the sun came up. I got inpatient, took some in the middle of the night (but didn't realize I didn't have a card in my camera and my transfer cord is ruined...so they're stuck on my camera). Then, we headed on and had breakfast in Charleston, S.C. I was so ready to get to Florida. By the time we hit the border of the state, the roads and sky opened up for us!

I checked into the command and went on house hunting leave. I'm now in an apartment in southside. Convenient to everything! I can't believe how fast I can get around on the freeway here! I forgot my car could go fast. I was always stuck in traffic in dc and don't ever think I got over 50 on the freeway. I'm bound to get a ticket soon. I can't control myself.

I got my stuff a week later than I was expecting it because the driver had a family emergency. Poo. I did get my things though and in a matter of just a few days, have already unpacked everything and it almost looks like a complete home.

I have a large blank red wall in my living room and one large blank wall in my bedroom that I'm wanting to fill, but I don't know what with. I don't want everything to look cluttered though. Please send any thoughts my way!

I also have an official "office"! I have a desktop computer again, too. I forgot how much I liked having one of those. I'm going to get a futon for my office, but I can't make up my mind what color. Ahhh.

Anywho, there is plenty of room here and lots of places for people to sleep (esp once I get my futon) so everyone must come visit! You'll love it. I'll post some pictures and try to get a video posted of me walking through the apt. We'll see if that works....

If I can't have you right now, I'll wait dear. Sometimes, I get so tense, but I can't speed up the time. -Patience by Guns N' Roses

Time just seems to be dragging. Just to torture me. Every day, my patients ask when I'll be PCSing or how long I've been here and where I'll be going. I talk about Jax all the time. Even Twilight is rubbing it in my face. Reading about how Bella's mom loves Jacksonville. I'm pretty much ready as much as I can be at this point. I will need to follow up with the housing dept and see what day they will come and move me. I'm so glad I don't have to worry about packing and actually moving. I just oversee the movers and then enjoy the day driving down with my dad.

I'm glad I already have my apartment set up. It's quiet on a small pond/lake and it's so quiet! I love it. I'm so ready to get away from all the noise.

I've also been having horrible headaches. I've never had headaches....they won't stop though.

This past Saturday I went to Busch Gardens with a few of my small group girls. Sunday, I ran the Navy 5 miler down by the Pentagon with Jessica. We got to a long stretch uphill and while I wanted to stop and walk, I looked to my right and realized I was looking at hundreds of tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery. I can't run a 5 mile run and yet these men and women lost their lives probably running up hills with body armor and being shot at. It really makes you push through and realize how lame your complaint is about the pain. We ended up making a time of 49.26. I'm proud of that! I normally run about a 12 min mile...just a slow trot. We made it right under a 10 min mile! That, and also going up hills. I never run hills. I need to work on that. Jess and I are now looking to run the Breast Cancer 1/2 marathon in Jacksonville in February. Gotta get my butt in shape. It's a step though. Only 5 months since I had my fasciotomies and it was my first run. God was there pushing me on.

Answers to prayer. One of the civilian nurses in the APU came up to me last week to ask about the hospitals in Lubbock, Texas. She had a friend who's son is going to Texas Tech and had his appendix burst and had to return to the hospital 4 different time for complications. The most recent one she was talking to me about was that he was now having fluid around his small and large intestine and it was looking like he was developing a small bowel obstruction and possible ileus. They were going to take him in to surgery that day and she asked me to lift it up in prayer. I had some time before my shift, so I went into our locker room and sat down and prayed about it. Normally, people say they will pray for someone, but get busy and never get around to it. Well, I wanted to make the time and actually do what I was saying I'd do. I prayed that they would get in there and that whatever they thought the problem was, that it wouldn't be there and they'd be able to let him heal without anything invasive in the surgery. The next day, I checked with her to see how it went. Amazingly, the guy got into preop and suddenly had bowel sounds return and it seemed like whatever had been the problem had already cleared up before they even had to sedate him. They didn't have a need for the surgery anymore! God is amazing. Things like that just make you stop and smile because you know His hand was involved.

That's my short update for now. I'm just in a holding period. I've already checked out mentally from Bethesda. I need to get out of here.

Jacksonville trip

That's downtown across the water. There is water everywhere! I love it. Much more navy-esque.

Not going back to dc...even just for a month!

Today, the beach!

Ohiopyle camping and white water trip!

Tanya planned a trip to ohiopyle, pa with phil, her aunt and husband and me. I've been so busy that it's been hard to be excited about it just because I feel like I have too much to do. It made it hard to relax at times, but I needed the break.

We met an awesome couple who was on our raft for our white water trip. It was a great day! We lost one woman in some rough rapids, but we were the only boat that got our person right back in the boat. We were all military, so we bonded quickly. It's funny how that is. We're all a big family. It's just what I wanted when I joined!

I'm glad I got up there since I didn't get home to go camping. Plus, here you camp and it's not 100 degrees! We get cold at night and the campfire is perfect. Good company, good smores, good food...good weekend.

In less than two weeks I'll be in jacksonville for labor day!

I'm dreading going back to work. I'm done with bethesda...

A few more

Brooks and Dunn and PAT GREEN

These aren't the best pictures in the world...but we couldn't take cameras in so I had to use my phone.

Oh, and this was on an army base and there were enlisted army and marines everywhere. Well, of course a few came up to talk to us and then eventually we get around to explaining to them that we don't have an MOS because we're officers. Then, you get the "oh. You're a 'ma'am'" look! Urg.

Changes aren't permanent, but change is. - Rush, Tom Sawyer

Gotta update several things....it's been a while.

First, I saw this article on CNN and was so excited!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/starr.extraordinary/index.html

It describes two different wounded warriors that had polar opposite changes in their lives. The first one they talk about is Andrew Kinard (http://www.goupstate.com/article/99999999/INDEPTH/516552862/). When I first got to Bethesda and I was fresh out of nursing school and on my rotation in the ICU, I shadowed the nurse taking care of Andrew. It was def a wake up call. He was a 2LT in the Marine Corps and had graduated from the Naval Academy. Only weeks into his first deployment, he stepped on a roadside bomb and ended up losing about everything from his hips down. I walked in the room to a young guy, who was also my age, with a trach, unable to talk and nothing from the hips down. He was able to read lips really well and had an alphabet board so he could spell out things. Despite the fact that he could not talk, he was a flirt. Bright red hair and a wink. I remember thinking he was very cute and one day his nurse and I walked in and told him we were going to do a "head to toe" assessment and he spelled out that he didn't have toes and smiled. Very cute. I was only there a few days, but I was there the day the Commandant of the Marine Corps gave him his purple heart. We also hung Christmas lights and stockings in his room. I won't forget those few days. Now, I'm sure he'd never know who I was. He spent a lot more time on 5E, the surgical floor and would know those nurses, but still. It meant a lot for me to be there for a few days.

Anywho, he's very smart and in this article it talks about how he was accepted to Harvard's Law School. He can do anything he puts his mind to and is an inspiration to everyone around the world.


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Reconciliation. One important virtue that God wants us to understand is how to forgive and how to ask forgiveness. If you are a believer in God and try and walk with Him, you will def understand forgiveness. It's the whole reason He sent Jesus for us. No matter what was done, when it was done or how we lived our lives, God will always accept a honest heart who comes before him to seek reconciliation. In addition to that, He wants us to seek reconciliation with other people who we have hurt.

It's amazing the power of a clear heart and conscious after a long time of guilt. I may not have gotten the response I was expecting, but in a way, it was just what I needed. I didn't cry or feel sorry for myself. I didn't go to sleep wishing someone was with me or wake up feeling alone. It was actually the opposite. I felt victorious. God didn't care about his response. He only cared about how I handled the situation and it pleased him. In the end, the person's harsh response and bitter heart will only hurt him in the long run. I'm free to be a confident (still growing) woman of God.

I feel like my life is on a whole new path. Patients who are upset have been so understanding when their surgery is postponed for hours, surgeons have actually said "thank you" and I am probably the happiest I've been in a long time. It's that "Brady Bunch" kinda look where the person is skipping down the road smiling and talking to everyone. Ya, I've been like that so much that I think it's making people sick at work. haha.

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I never talked about my sister's visit. It was so great. We didn't have a whole lot planned. A lot of the time it was just us hanging out on my patio or watching movies. She did surprise me with a segway tour of DC (the absolute best way to do it!) and we ate lunch on the Potomac and shopped in Georgetown.


The first day didn't start off so great. It was rush hour and we had to switch trains at Chinatown (one of the busiest stations). I had my sister's suitcase so she wouldn't have to worry about it. The train was sooo packed and the platform so much that you couldn't move. People were just pushing and running, etc. i got on the train and heard the doors closing and someone jumped in front of my sis before she could get on and the doors closed. I will never forget looking at my sister's face through the metro doors while she was stuck on the platform and I was about to drive away. I kept yelling at her to "stay there!!!' through the doors. I knew I could get back to her, but she couldn't find me if we separated. Especially because you can't get cell reception down there. Long story, but I got back to the station and found her and we eventually got home. It made for an interesting beginning to the visit.



Later that night we were attacked by a cicada. It was awful. I lose control when attacked by those or roaches.....it ended with a couple bruises and a tear in my sliding screen door. (From my broom) Eventually, we conquered and killed him with some bathroom cleaner. :) Why is it every time she comes to visit horrible bugs attack us??


So, that's my long, overdue update. Until next time.

For every mistake we must surely be learning, still my guitar gently weeps. - The Beatles, While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Air Force probes surgery at base; Airman loses legs after gallbladder operation

A 20-year-old airman was in critical condition at University of California Davis Medical Center on Monday, after losing both legs in what his family described as complications of routine gallbladder surgery.

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg

McClatchy Newspapers

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A 20-year-old airman was in critical condition at University of California Davis Medical Center on Monday, after losing both legs in what his family described as complications of routine gallbladder surgery.

Neither the medical center nor Travis Air Force Base, where Airman 1st Class Colton Read underwent surgery this month, would comment on specifics of his case.

Travis said only that a "serious medical incident" occurred at its David Grant Medical Center on July 9 and is being investigated by the base, a national hospital accrediting commission and the U.S. Surgeon General.

Read, who was stationed at Beale Air Force Base east of Marysville, Calif., was supposed to get his gallbladder removed laparoscopically at the Travis hospital, said his wife, Jessica Read.

Instead, a device being threaded into his belly nicked or punctured the aorta, a large artery that carries blood from the heart throughout the body, she said.

Surgeons opened his abdomen and were able to repair the breach well enough to save his life, but in the process or afterward, something apparently disrupted the blood supply to his legs.

Jessica Read said she was told the aorta was sewn together incompletely and began leaking, and her husband was flown to UC Davis Medical Center late that afternoon for more specialized vascular surgery.

Her uncle, Dr. Michael Hines, a Texas surgeon, said he was told by the UC Davis surgeon who operated on Colton Read that two branching vessels from the aorta that carry blood to the legs were clotted and closed.

When the surgeon restored the blood supply to those iliac vessels, the legs were so badly swollen and damaged that blood circulated only down to the knees, leaving dead tissue below, Hines said.

Colton Read has undergone surgeries that removed first the lower-right leg, then the lower-left and more of the right, his wife said. Hines said he had "a hard time understanding how he ended up with no legs ... how you leave an operation without assuring that there is blood flow."

For her part, Jessica Read anguishes over the nearly nine hours, by her count, that passed from the initial surgical error until her husband was flown to Sacramento. She wonders if his legs could have been saved had he been moved more quickly.

"They were wasting time doing a sonogram, doing an angiogram, wasting so much time," she said.

When she arrived at UC Davis Medical Center, the surgeon there told her there was "a very real chance" her husband would not survive.

Since then, he has been doing a little better each day, gradually regaining kidney function and slipping in and out of consciousness, she said.

He knows he has lost his legs, but "I don't know how much of it sticks."

I can't believe this story. How awful. I read another one that mentioned another surgeon saying it's not the mistake that makes a surgeon, but what he does after that mistake. Very true in this case. What I think is even more awful that you don't see here are the comments at the bottom of the article. People started slamming military doctors saying they can't "hack" it in the civilian sectors. HA. I'm sorry.....but if you saw some of the men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and then what the doctors did to rebuild their face or give them legs again, you might be thinking something different. They do some things that civilians could NEVER think of. They have to perform medicine in situations that civilians would never want to be in. Mortars going off outside the hospital, people coming in after being out in the field for who knows how long, your treasured equipment isn't right next door when your trauma comes in with double amputeed legs. I'm just in awe of what our military doctors are doing and while this case shocked me and I can't EVEN imagine what it would be like to be the patient or his family....I can't stand for people generalizing and saying that all the military doctors are "POS"es as one comment put it.

here's the link if you would like to make a comment back: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009513180_surgery22.html

Freedom scares you because it means responsibility. - Dead Kennedys, Stars And Stripes Of Corruption

Wow. I'm going to sound like my dad here...but what is going on with people in this country???

What happened to what really founded this country. People that were willing to do anything to be on their own and have control over their own lives. They were tired of a monarchy that told them what to do. Freedom was given to American citizens and in turn, we all were responsible for ourselves. Now, no one wants to be responsible, we want the government to do everything and in turn, we give up our freedom. The more control we give the government (well, hell. They claim the control anyway...even if we protest), the less we get to choose for ourselves.

I don't want my family members to have worry about how long it will take to see a doctor and if they can have the procedure or if the government won't approve it....no. I don't like that at all. And not only that, but we'll be paying out the wazoo for this....and our children and their children....

And, HELLOOOOO. I wasn't a huge fan of Bush or anything, but everyone was ALL over him for his spending and Obama has him beat in the first few months! I'm not quite sure how that worked. All the people that complained about Bush are now rooting for the spending by Obama. I'm puzzled.

You want free health care? Join the military. Give something back to the government. Don't just put your hand out, expect everything to be given to you and then just spit in its face.

Now, I do believe that our current health care system does need to be looked at and changed, but I'm not so sure about what's being thought of right now.

Before anyone thinks that I'm too this or too that or too right or too left....I'm more less a libertarian. That's the closest I can claim to be. I believe we should all take care of ourselves. There are too many opportunities these days to sit back and say they can't improve their situation. I know plenty of men and women that had no way out and were in a dead end situation and joined the military. Through that, they have gone from living dirt poor to being the first in their family to get a college degree and be able to afford food for their family.

There are no excuses.

My morning song. Just what I needed.

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

-By Your Side by Tenth Avenue North

He's going the distance. -Cake

So, today wasn't the best running experience I've had, but there is something I want to share. A friend at work showed me runningahead.com. It's a way to keep your running training in a log and will help you map out your runs, etc. I'm going to try and keep it up to speed for some of you to follow (and for my own tracking).

I think I'm getting a chest cold and I had a hard time taking deep breaths today, so I only did 2 miles. I am going to add the link to my blog as well. Help encourage me to get running and increase the amount! Thanks!

http://www.runningahead.com/logs/16c720e1d12e463189236291c5eb1595/profile

I can remember the 4th of July, running through the backwoods bare. - Creedence Clearwater Revival, Born On The Bayou

My last 4th of July in the Nation's Capital (while living here, at least). It was a great day. Ali and I headed all over the dc area just bumming around and then we eventually all met up for the concert and fireworks. I have no idea how we managed to find everyone, but we did and it was awesome! Then, walked to Gordon Bierch while everyone ran to the metro. Had good food and then got really sleepy and headed back home.

And, oh yes. I got called before the fireworks to let me know I had to go into work this morning to discharge a patient that was admitted for an emergency surgery and was staying overnight. Fun times. Right. At least I got to see the show!

I've got such good friends up here. I'm really going to miss them.

It is such a cool feeling to celebrate Independence Day here in Washington, DC. :)

Walking the mall

...And finding our firework spot! Right near where they will be shot off. :) enjoying a concert by the army band.

2nd stop- Navy memorial