Friday, May 2, 2008

Want to buy me a coffee?

Hey, thought I would add the link to Green Beans Coffee, its the US run coffee shop on camp, they are essentially like a Starbucks coffee. Anyway, they have this AWESOME program that you can buy coffee cards for the troops overseas! If you click on the link, then go to Buy Online, click on the coffee card link. So you can send me a prepaid coffee card if you feel so inclined! You just need to follow the prompts! You will need to select a location, Kandahar, and the Main location is the best one for me here. Its just outside the hospital! So if you don't want to send a big box of stuff, these would be super!!
Thank you!!
Talk to you all soon!
Love
MA

Its MAY!! 4 more months until Sept and one more month until my vacation!

Greetings all, its been awhile since I've posted. It's hard to believe where the time goes, its flying by here, and I find myself wondering more often than not what day of the week it is! Working shift work doesn't hurt either. We've been incredibly busy this past month. I think I've spent 2 days in total on the ward, and the rest in the ICU, we've been over our maximum capacity on several occassions here. That helps pass the time as well. We moved into our temporary quarters until our regular quarters are ready. What a pain in the ass for me since I have so much stuff! Plus I got two huge parcels from Mom right in the midst of the move! That's ok though! Everyone here enjoys all the food and snacks I share! So we cleared out of the American quarters and moved into a building up at New Canada House, in the Canadian lines. So on the complete opposite side of the camp from where we were. Its nice to be up here, and we find that we are all hanging out alot more, as we are all living together in the same building. Guys on one side of the hall and girls on the other. My roomie is another nurse here, she's awesome and we get along great. She's super considerate and is totally fun too! We have the same ideas about alot of things so we are pretty compatible! Our permanent quarters might be ready by the end of the month, so we'll likely be moving then. Hope so! I hope to be in an settled into the new building before I go on my leave in June! But we are really enjoying being here, we hang out alot together, more than before since we were all in separate buildings, and it's alot of fun! We plan on building a patio outside for a place to hang but we'll see how that goes.
Its also nice to have access to some more Canadians as well, before we were down in the US lines and never saw any of our own.
So things are going good. Derek is at home with Mom and Dad now, hanging out with the puppies and going fishing with his new fishing rod. It will be nice to be able to see him on webcam again. I was also able to reconnect my internet in this building, so that is pretty exciting! Worth every penny I believe! Although wireless was available at New Canada House, but I would spend more time socializing than emailing!
So things have been good here, lots of new staff in, and some on HLTA, so its fun to have all these new faces. I've met some pretty great people from here, and enjoy getting to know people. So far I haven't been too homesick, but I try not to think about it. I try not to let it get to me. Had some difficult patient cases too, but it hasn't been too bad. We're seeing alot of head injury patients, we have a British neurosurgeon with us, so that sucks as it seems like that's all we get. But they've been interesting cases atleast.
We've had a few more rocket attacks, two of the videos I will post are from that. It was hilarious, we made sure our patients were covered with the blast blankets and our own PPE on and then proceeded to goof off for the rest of it. It was a busy night in the ICU so that was almost the final straw. Atleast we can laugh about it instead of getting all freaked out, I mean the sirens go after the rockets have landed so if you are still alive, then you have reason to be happy I think.
Its been getting really hot here, the outdoor thermometer we brought with us has been reading into the high 40's during the day. So its really nice in the evenings and in the mornings but mid day is almost untolerable at times. Amazing how you get used to it though. I have been trying to work on my tan but know that I will still have the worst tan lines on my trip.
Also got my hair coloured here at the little spa on camp. Its run by these women from Kurjistan or something like that. I asked for a few highlights, and now I'm almost a blond! Oopsy! It looks ok, I've got a lot of compliments on it, but I'm still alittle unsure. Guess we'll see! Maintaining it might be a bit of a problem though. Think I'll be getting my hair done in Greece!
So its now May, its going to be a busy month for me I think. Lots on the go, I have a videoteleconference with KGH on the 14th, which is also my birthday, (yay!) and then we have nurses week that week as well and I'm arranging the festivities here. I'm planning another luncheon like I did in Kabul. So we'll see how that goes. But the month will fly by I think and before I know it I'll be packing my bags for my HLTA and on my way to Greece.
Well, that's enough of my babble for a bit. I will try to post more now since I have internet in my room again.
Thanks for all your love and support, it is appreciated and helps the time go by easier.
I'm sorry if I don't get back to you all individually more often, I get about 20 emails a day from various people and just don't have the time to email you all! Hence the need for the blog! Sorry! I still love you all though!
Thanks for understanding.
Lots of love,
Mary Ann