Interesting day. It almost feels like my weekends are busier then my weekdays. The last two weekends we have been busy with work in the operating room and meetings. We have that general staff meeting every Saturday afternoon in which we go over a medical topic and go around the room for concerns about the hospital. Today we learned about an little infection called Leshmaniasis. I think I spelled it right but don't really care if I do. Its close enough. It is a parasite that you can get an infection from a bite by a sand fly. This infection is specific for this part of the world and south america. It causes this boil like infection. Looks like a volcano and it usually take 6-12 months to get over and there is no real treatment. You just live with it. It doesn't spread and eventually fades away but causes a scar. I figure it would be my luck I would get bit on the neck and have this wonderful looking active volcano for everyone to see. Don't worry I haven't been bit.

I really have a lot to talk about today. It is bits and pieces of different things we have seen or discussed but a lot of pictures and maybe a lot of verbal tangents that go along with it. We will see where it takes us. The biggest even of the day was the poker game. We will start there

The concept of poker was never really introduced to me growing up. As we have spoken of before, pitch was the game of choice around our households. With the growing popularity of the poker game Texas Hold-em we started a small group of guys around home. We played once a month. It was really nice to get together and I could win some extra money. People that appear really smart sometimes are challenged mentally by such a game. I find it interesting that some true mental pathology comes out in the smallest of ways. Take for instance a player. We will call him JB. It's hard to play across from him b/c the sheen on his balding head distracts you during the game. He has certain tells. A tell means he gives away his hand. His is picking his nose when he is bluffing. I make sure there is a box of kleenex near by for him. His constant banter of words distracts us from his game. His voice is like the gun that goes off in the middle of the night here sometimes. We get through it and take his money willingly. Then there is a player that we will call Vonde. A true poker man's poker player. That's a funny sentence. Doesn't make much sense. He likes to play poker and you know it. A bull in a china shop combined with the wit of a jellyfish. Like a big bull faced jelly-fish. Maybe a jelly-fish in a china shop. I don't know. It's late and just the thought of his playing style is making me ill. Do your remember the show Finding Nemo? What was Nemo's friends name that was the little blue fish? Oh yes - Dory. Playing poker with him is like playing with Dory. Except bigger and more aggressive. Fatty Dory. Anyway, taking money from him is like taking candy from a baby. That is mean.

The first picture is of me sitting at the poker table.



I took this picture at this angle to give the impression of the size of the stack of chips I had left. As you can tell it did not work very well. I should of taken the picture earlier when it looked more impressive. I find it funny that we all come to a poker game and we have to dress alike. We all have our gray Army shirt on and black Army shorts on. There was six of us to start with. Everybody puts 10 dollars in and the person with the most chips in at the end wins. Texas hold-em is the easiest of all poker games to play. You get 2 cards and eventually 5 are put down on the table. The person with the best 5 cards out of the 2 in your hand and the ones on the table wins.


This is a picture of me leaving the table.



I do admit that I did not win this game. I was not the first one out put I am proud to be the 2nd one to leave the table. I did go down with a pair of aces in my hand. I figure if I lose with those then I was meant to lose. Truly I am an expert at this game. What I mean to say is I am an expert at losing. I think out of all the times the guys and I have played at home I might of gotten 3rd once. It is a patience thing and I am sincerely lacking in that category sometimes. The people I play with say it is more then that and as you can tell by the way I think of two of them from our discussion before that I don't appreciate that kind of negative talk about me and my poker playing ability. SO THERE. I am sticking my tongue out at them now as a child would do. Thought I would paint that disturbing mental picture for you.


Just to prepare you. This is going to be a marathon blog. Multiple pictures. Hang in there with me b/c I thought I was pretty lame last week. My mind is getting as numb as being here.


The next picture is dear to my heart.



I have forgotten about these darling food pieces for 10 weeks. I even forgot to put them on my top ten list. I saw them at the PX and bought like 4 packages of them. I applaud the human who decided to make king size packages of these things. His or her friends probably call him/her fatty dory also but truly a stroke of genius. I didn't have supper this day b/c of just a general amount of things to do to keep busy and this package was my saviour. 400 calories in that package therefore 100 per cup. 200 of it from plain fat. We might just switch the workout from girl scout cookies to Reese's peanut butter cups. I feel so bad leaving them I off my list that I might have to eat a package a day as punishment for a week. I want to know who Reese is, don't you. Was he a truly brilliant person or someone named this thing after him b/c he fell with his chocolate bar into a jar of peanut butter. I really want to know.

The next picture is of the hallway in our hospital that is lined by quilts made by Major Anderson.




She kept her machine here to make me 3 and to keep herself busy. In exchange I am paying to ship her sewing machine home. We looked at these earlier and wanted to show you how good the look. I will be happy to always have these to remember this place by. Something beautiful to drown out the ugliness of the environment.


The next picture is a gift from home.



We got a drill from the office in care from my friend Diane. This drill was Dr. Yost''s drill and has been in the practice for greater then 50 years. This is Major Anderson seeing if it works on Captain Bilendy's head. This is a hand held drill that we could use to stabilize fractures here. This one is better then the one that we have here so that is good. I was hoping for an electric one like we usually use. This drill will stay here for the entirety of this hospitals existence here. I think that is pretty cool. I bet Dr. Yost never thought it would end up here.


We had another little fire incident at the hospital. Here is a picture of it




This guy standing in front of the black charred area caused it. This is what happened. This individual was out behind the operating room smoking and quite harmlessly stuck his cigarette butt in a can. That is the story. The heat caused this plastic stuff back there that we use as walkways to catch on fire and it spread to the back of the hospital. What your seeing is the corner of the tent aspect directly behind the operating room that obviously was burning. A couple soldier's inside the side tent next to it saw it and went out there with fire extinguishers and put it out. This stuff is foam that is charred. What they do around here to insulate the tents by a process of foaming it up. I bet it is at least 6 inches deep. It really works well for efficiency. So this stuff was burning. The BFD came and made sure all was good and really nothing got hurt. It actually could have been a really huge deal. Dean felt bad but that's what you get if you smoke.


I want to tell Cindy Losee something. I admit it was not Dean who was smoking. It actually was somebody else. Dean is not smoking and I am sorry that I brought him into this. He has just been a big pain in the butt lately and I wanted to get him back. I am very sorry if I have caused you some distress. If I caused him some distress I don't really care. He deserves it. We have this love-hate relationship now after spending so much time together over 10+ weeks.


I will now share with you Dean's two most famous quotes from our quest here together in Iraq. The first thing he says a lot is "hurt people, hurt people." He actually gives a family member credit for this statement. When I make fun of him he says this. You kind of got to hear it to make sense of it but I will try to explain. His point is that a "hurt person" or a person who is angry or bitter will actually go and verbally hurt other people with what they say. It actually makes a lot of sense and is funny when you say. He just says it all the time which just makes me want to strangle him and then he says it some more.


The second thing he says is that "you are stealing my joy." He and Dr. Braswell had a real funny relationship in which they gave each other a lot of crap and this was coming out of his mouth all of the time. Now he just tells me this all the time. Feel free to use these with your friends or coworkers. Then you can think of the mental abuse in which I have had to put up with.


Well I am done stealing all of your joy. I hope this weekend is a good one. Getting more and more excited about coming home.


Play Hard
Play Smart
Play Together