The time! The time! Who’s got the time?

October 22, 2009
Hey gang,

 So what the heck is with the phrase “The time!  The time!  Who’s got the time?”.  It came from the Disney animated feature “Alice in Wonderland”.  It was the white rabbit who wanted to know the time.  Now, Dandy, crazy silly, can’t figure out how you connect the dots Dandy, what does this have to do with you?

 You’re about to find out.  I left home with a perfectly good functioning wrist watch and when I got to Norfolk, VA., the band broke as I was heaving heavy military issue bags out of the back of a bus.  So I cut my losses and carried the face in my pocket for weeks until I could buy another one.  I went to the BX where all they had were watches the size of Hulk Hogan’s wrist- not going to work on me. 

 Finally, a guy a work with had a big zip lock bag of watches for sell.  So I picked out a really nice “Folex” (you know fake Rolex that’s black market) for twenty smackers  and I loved my Folex.  It was silver and minimally pinched the hair on my arms.  It was a dish of a watch and I couldn’t be happier.  Then one day I went to take a shower and took my watch off to hang on the towel hook, but I got a case of the dropsies and dropped my precious watch.  In slow motion I watched it hit the tile floor and swiftly bent over to save it only to find my Folex had a shattered face.  It wasn’t even slightly cracked- it was shattered to the point that I couldn’t make out the time.  So I chucked in the trash!

 Then I had to go back to my stopwatch without the band, but I couldn’t remember where I left it.  I asked my sweet hubby to buy me another watch and he happily obliged me.  He purchased a watch and put it in the same package as my brand new laptop.  If you know my laptop story, then you know the package never arrived and vanished to the black hole with my watch.

 I finally found my broken watch and life was good for a while.  Then my $10, battery operated alarm clock that I just bought on my journey here stopped waking me up.  I woke up late- not late for work, but late for me about three times in one week.  Feeling a certain amount of anxiety because as you know I hate being late, I made a trip to the BX to buy some new batteries for the old alarm clock and a new alarm clock just in case.  I got my bag of treasures back to my room and set out on a “Wake me the heck up on time” mission when I put the new batteries in my old alarm clock and still the little alarm clock icon wouldn’t turn on.  I moved the switch back and forth with such fury and vigor thinking I could get the stinking thing to cooperate.  No luck!

 Now even more peeved, I tore my new alarm clock out of the package and realized the clock didn’t come with batteries!  I had bought AAA batteries for the old one and the new one required AA.  Imagine that!  At that very point, I had to take a deep breath and just sit there and fight the urge of breaking into hysterics.  Was this really happening to me?  Then I collected myself and realized I had bought AA batteries for my digital camera a couple weeks ago.  Now, where were those batteries?  I had just moved wall lockers and moved all of my stuff around.  I rifled through my drawers feverishly about at my wits end and with no luck as I couldn’t find them.  A few minutes later, I gathered myself and calmly search my drawers again and find the batteries.  I fumbled with the back of the alarm clock trying to pry the battery door open without breaking the cheap plastic.  By this time being rational was something I was finding extremely difficult to accomplish.  Finally I got the back off and with three of four tries, got the battery shoved into the slot, but couldn’t get the cover back on.  I said “to hell with the cover”!  I did a operation check on the new alarm clock and at 10:00 am, it went off as planned. 

 For good measure I set the old alarm clock, the new alarm clock, and my broken wrist watch.  At precisely 4:45 pm, brace yourself- all three alarm clocks went off!  Now who’s got the time?  By golly, I got the freakin’ time!

 Dandy 74.2 miles to go Aaron
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Mountain Home and a typical day

October 08, 2009

Hey Gang,

 So I know it’s been a couple weeks since I last wrote.  I think I was off last Thursday.  Hopefully by now most of you have heard that JW and I got orders to Mountain Home AFB, Idaho!  We are super excited!  I’ve already done some research on Boise and it sounds like the perfect town.

Plenty of shopping and dining opportunities and the outdoor activity list is pretty much unlimited.  We are really looking forward to our new chapter.

 Now on to a typical day.  So what is my typical day?  I get up at 4:45pm and take a shower and then I head to the dining facility (DFAC) to get food to go to take back to work to eat.  But after I get my food, I have to stop by my room and pick up my backpack and walk to work.  I eat my dinner in the break room watching “The Brady Bunch” or sometimes “Days of Our Lives” or whatever else may be on.  Then I change out of my PT gear into my scrubs and start our checks.  We check our equipment to make sure it works, and the oxygen tank levels, and make sure the supplies are set out accordingly to accept up to six traumas at a moment’s notice.  Then we have shift change- basically a quick five minute report on what patients we have what we are expecting.  We have four medical patient beds and six trauma beds.  If I’m the shift leader I make assignments.  If I’m not, then I get an assignment.  So for example if I was given bed 7, I’d introduce myself to the patient and find out if they need anything done. (i.e.- labs, xrays, IV fluids, etc.)  I follow that patient until they are discharged and then I get the next patient that’s put into bed 7 and the process starts again.

Some nights I have a full room all night- others I may not even get a medical patient in my room.  Then we’re also assigned to a trauma bed.

We’re either on the primary trauma or secondary trauma.  If you’re on primary trauma, then we get all of the one patient traumas throughout the night.  If you’re on the secondary trauma you’ll get a patient if there is more than one patient coming in.  If we get more than two traumas then we get help from the other departments in the hospital.

Some nights we’re get up to 13 traumas total and other nights we’ll have no traumas.  Every day if different. 

 At 11pm we send a first group of people out to the DFAC to get food.

And then when that group gets back we send the second group.  If we have traumas between 11pm-1am we don’t get hot food.  We go to the DFAC and get cold sandwiches, fruit, etc once we slow down.  Then at about 5:30 am we stock our rooms and get ready to day shift to come in and start working at 6:30am.  Once I get off of work I go to my dorm room and drop off my weapon and backpack and head to the gym.  I spent anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours there depending on my schedule for the day.

After my workout, I go back to my room to get my weapon and back to the DFAC to get some food.  If my roommates are sleeping I eat at the DFAC, if not I take it back to my room.  Then after I’m done eating I take a shower and go to bed.  And then ground hog’s day starts again!

 Dandy 99.1 miles to go Aaron

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