Mission Jamaica: Complete

April 21^st, 2011

Jamaica MEDCAPS (Medical Civil Action Program) complete!

April 22^nd, 2011

Ok, didn’t have much time to write yesterday.  That’s because we had our last day of clinic at the National Sports Arena, and we were able to borrow some free WiFi from the office building next door.  WiFi = Skype!  So I got to see the kids and Scott for about 20 minutes – the connection wasn’t great but it was better than nothing!  I’m told we will probably get WiFi again in Haiti, but until then, I’m planning on the archaic internet connection on the ship.

There’s an email going around the crew here called “My Donut of Freedom.”  It’s a pie chart (donut, get it?) that someone created in Excel, charting the percentage of deployment completed to date (it also has a second-by-second countdown).  As of today, we are 12% done!!!  It sounds awful, but actually 12% seems pretty good to me.

Getting back home is definitely a prime topic of conversation around the ship.  Another hot topic: liberty.  I can definitely see why the sailors on liberty port may go a little crazy.  You would think we had all been away from civilization for months, the way we are planning our 4 days of freedom (which, by the way, is still over a month away).  For many of us, one of the most anticipated parts will be the ability to wear civilian clothes – for me, the prospect of just wearing anything other than combat boots is making me happy.

Today is our last day in Jamaica.  For those who have asked, we are anchored in Kingston, the capitol of Jamaica.  There is a very good reason why cruise ships and tourist airlines don’t fly into Kingston.  It is poverty-ridden and dirty.  There are no Caribbean blue beaches nearby, just brown-black water with lots of floating trash.  To get ashore, we take a small “hospitality boat” that holds 35 people.  It’s about a 2-3 minute ride to the BLZ – the boat landing zone.  The BLZ is in downtown Kingston, with office buildings, banks, and street vendors close by.  You can see the Blue Ridge Mountains from the ship.  I’d love to come back and see the rest of the island, as a tourist.  Who’s with me?

April 24^th, 2011

Happy Easter!  We are back at sea, en route to Peru.  We left Jamaica on Friday morning and have had a quiet “holiday” weekend, with a relaxed schedule (got to sleep in until 6:45 yesterday morning, woo hoo!).  Today, I attended the Easter Sunrise service on the flight deck, somewhere in the Caribbean, southwest of Jamaica and northwest of Peru.  Pretty cool.

When we first got underway in Portsmouth, I wasn’t sure how I would handle the rocking of the ship.  It was definitely an adjustment, made much harder by the fact that I had a nasty cold and was very, very congested.  I spent several days with a feeling of “disequilibrium” – even after we anchored in Jamaica I had the disconcerting feeling of falling backwards, and found myself leaning forward in my chair, and even in bed.  My abs got a workout those few days.  Once I stepped foot on land, my disequilibrium went away (coincidentally, so did my cold).  So I was nervous to restart the journey – especially when the ship’s master (the civilian mariner in charge of operating the ship) sent an email telling us about the Pacific swells that were to come.  I will say, now that we have been back underway for 2 full days, that I LOVE the rocking of the ship.  It is so soothing and comforting somehow.  It’s funny to walk through the halls and see people leaning to one side or the other without thinking.  We all look like we’re failing a mass sobriety test.  And like I’ve mentioned before, there is nothing like being on a treadmill while at sea – it’s really a cool feeling though.

The bad part about moving again, is what my Navy colleagues refer to as “hull chatter.”  Hull chatter describes the seemingly endless variety of random noises that the ship produces as it cuts through the water, at all hours of the day and night.  I have gotten out of my bed on more than one occasion to find out who in the hell is banging on our lockers with a hammer in the middle of the night.  Well, obviously, no one is banging on our lockers with a hammer in the middle of the night – somehow this noise represents normal ship functioning.  My roommate Carrie (another Air Force internist) is convinced there is an elf who scratches on the wall above her head continuously.  And there are apparently crewmembers upstairs from us who repeatedly throw their bowling balls on the floor.  Of course, some of the noises ARE explainable – when the ship rocks side to side, it opens and closes doors and lockers, so there’s a “creak-SLAM-creak-SLAM” rhythm to enjoy too.  Hull chatter. 

Tomorrow we’re back to our regular at-sea routine.  This means a 6:00am wake-up call (“Reveille, reveille!  <<crackle crackle something>> all hands on deck <<something something>> - I’ll let you know if I ever figure out what they’re saying).  Of course, for those of you who know me well, you know that the wake-up call is simply alarm #1, and that there are plenty of snoozes to come.  I will finally crawl out of bed around 6:30, get dressed in ABUs, and head to the mess deck for breakfast.  Breakfast is the best meal of the day, and would get 5 stars if they only had decent coffee.  After breakfast, we muster in our duty stations at 7:15 – my duty station is the Sick Bay, although I don’t usually work there.  We take roll call, hear the POD (Plan of the Day), and get specific instructions from our specialty leaders.  I think I’ve mentioned there are 6 internists here, and we have a really good group.  We each take MOOD (Medical Officer of the Day) call one day out of six, and there’s otherwise a lot of downtime when we’re in transit (when we get in port, we are usually doing shorework when we’re not the MOOD).  As an aside, there’s also a POOD (Pediatric Officer of the Day) and a DOOD (Dental Officer of the Day) – I think we got off lucky with the MOOD title.  Tomorrow we are having an M&m conference – for the non-medical folks, this stands for morbidity and mortality, and is an opportunity to share possible adverse outcomes and lessons learned.  We will be doing this once at the end of each mission site.  Thankfully, there are no “big M’s” (mortalities) to present, and it will primarily focus on frustrations and possible areas of improvement for future missions.

After the M&m conference, my day is free.  The funny thing is, most of my at-sea days start off completely free, and usually by 8:00 or so, are 100% booked.  People are pretty good about taking initiative to schedule various informal teaching sessions, formal training classes, group workouts, Bible studies, movie matinees, and administrative meetings.  Throw in time for email and phone calls, as well as lunch, dinner, and a nightly Ops Brief, and the day fills up fast.  Every night there is an evening prayer over the “1MC” (ship’s audio system), and then at 10pm, it’s “Lights Out.”  It’s only a little bit like being in prison, I promise.

We also have a great MWR (Morale, Recreation, and Welfare) department on the ship – the “fun boss,” as she’s called, is one of my other roommates.  They hosted an ice cream social a few nights ago (with lots of toppings – very well received) and have arranged for a Bingo night tonight.  On Tuesday, we’ll cross through the Panama Canal, and will have our first “steel beach picnic” – a picnic on the flight deck, so we can enjoy the view passing through the Canal.  Sometime this week, we will also cross the equator.  Some of you may have heard of the Crossing the Line ceremony – we are apparently doing this on the way back up (since there’s already quite a bit going on this week).  I am a little nervous about that but I think it will be fun – and then I will no longer be a pollywog, but a mighty shellback!  I’ll let you know how it goes…