Time Flies...WOW

Time is Flying By!!!!!! I cannot believe how long it has been since my last post..... well, let's get caught up.....
        Things have been up and down at the hospital, keeping busy.....unfortunately, and sometimes we are stuck with some very serious and life changing ethical dilemmas on care of locals in the fact that we have to utilize techniques from many years ago to try and ensure their survivability in their community facilities and villages.... that sometimes also takes creative thinking and physiological approaches....
        We celebrated the 4th of July and the USO gave the Role 3 an awesome BBQ party.. I was working during it but did manage to get outside for a brat and some veggies!!! YUM! No fireworks but we did have the jets at the aifield taking off right behind us....

Now...... I am getting into a routine and have even found some great exercise classes.... Zumba in particular!!!! we have an awesome instructor and he is in the Army! Yes I said he and he ROCKS!!!
it is one of the quickest hours of a dance party workout and it is all great music!!!! I had a miss congeneality moment early on to the song "Tally Ho"..... I had to remind myself that it is not side kicks and double knifehand lows.... it is dance kicks and "swoop arms" I giggle everytime the song starts.  Well, gotta get off to sleep...... will update more later and include some great pics of my little "dojang niche" I am getting set up for my training.....

Another week down....

Wow! It is amazing to me how quickly the time can go by. Of course, out here you tend to get yourself into a "routine" as much as possible. So many things have gone on, we have been slow (no casualties), busy(some) and unreal turnin' and burnin'- unfortunately a mass casualty. It's like going into autopilot mode and you just keep going until the last one is cared for and resting soundly.... then you look at the clock and it's like "where did the day go?"

Several important days have gone past, Father's Day where I left my husband with our kids... funny enough, they made the front page of our local paper because we have kindof a reverse family in town. Everyone is used to the dad deploying as Marines, not too many are used to the mom going. I guess after our last story about Skyping graduation, they thought it would make a good Father's Day story.... here is their front page..

kinda cool!

I was glad they were able to have a great day!!! Back here in Afghanistan, not so much, we have had a couple rocket attacks and yesterday was one of those mass casualty days..... and to top it off, it was my birthday which I didn't even realize until the end of the day when I was finishing everything in the aftermath of all the traumas..... My joke about the date/day is that i only know what it is because my watch tells me so, well we hit the Role 3 and immediately went into trauma mode and that for me means my watch comes off so it doesn't get too soiled.....soooooo I could not look down and see the date. Funny thing is.... I didn't miss not celebrating, out here it is just another day. We dont have standard weekdays, just work and call days......

    Hoping everything is going well back home, I am sure it is. Looking forward to hearing my son's concert from ECU band camp.... 2nd chair, Top Band (GOLD)!!  can't wait!!!!





     

Technology ROCKS!!!

Ok, So I am later than what I wanted to be in updating my blog, it  has been a crazy busy week here at th Role 3....lots of casualties..... A great moment in any parent's life is being able to be at their child's graduation..... I unfortunately though that i would miss my son's graduation.... wait for it......through the amazing use of technology and a wonderful group of friends, I was able to "be" there and see my son's entire graduation, see him walk across the stage, receive his diploma, and then congratulate him afterwards........ How.... well, my wonderful husband brought his ipad to the ceremony and friends of ours used their cell phone to create a wifi hot spot, put the phone in his pocket and he went down to the fence where we were able to skype and I had a front row viewing. It was 0330 in the morning here in  Afghanistan and  i was sitting on the stes right outside my barracks room. How absolutely cool was that??  truly a memory and milestone I did not have to miss!!! and here is the photo that has amazed all: my husband holding me up (in PT gear)......
     

and here is what I am looking at: my son graduating!!!!!

One Week Down!

Well, I have been here in Afghanistan for one week..... and how do we celebrate??? thanks to the insurgents, we have a mass casualty attack of innocent people and we rock and roll our OR (Theatre) rooms for the past 10 hours and still going.... I have gone back to my barracks room with pager call to get some rest and continue tomorrow! after all the deployments and dealing with this before it just seems so surreal that you would attack your own counrymen????  I am not here to judge, just do my damdest to save lives and make the world a better place.

On a different note, I have my training gear lined up to be sent by my family, I have found 2 great gyms to work out in and one has a heavy bag I can train on... In addition, a Corpsman from my last deployment who is into MMA has brought some Muy tai pads... time to get it on. I am thinking about getting the workout shoes that are the feet gloves to train in so I dont hurt my bare feet.

Short one tonight, gotta get some rest so I will continue to be on my game.!!

Kyrgyzstan......Where????

Ok, so after traveling for over 26hrs, multiple time zone changes, we are holding steady in Kyrgyzstan! Where you may ask??? I thought the same thing and then thought wow!!!! how ignorant I felt having to look on the maps to find this location...... a deployment project to beef up my world geography....

I will have more info on this area after I venture out tday!!

Since today is Memorial Day... I would just like to honor all the men and women in uniform!!!!! When we left South Carolina, the mos AMAZING group of people did some AMAZING things for us!!! the USO of South Carolina and all the Task Force Marshal Volunteers should be commended for their generosity and time given to us.  We received  full police and motorcycle escort with flags flying all the way from Camp McCrady to the Airport. Then, all the volunteers fed us pizza, juice, water, and all sorts of goodies.... tallked with us, wished us all the best, and were so supportive!!!!! the Boy Scouts, VFW Post and American Legion were making gifts for us and were just AWESOME!!!! What a sendoff and they do this every few weeks!!!!! the Communities of Ft. jackson, columbia, and lexington are very wonderful folks, looking forward to going back down there just to visit.

Now for some more coffee and venturing out to see what this base has to offer!!!

Ready to Roll Out

Ok, so here we gooooooooooooooooo.................... my "NARMY" training is coming to a close.... what a great experience....yet again, and I have ensured the DS's that i will not be back a 3rd time.....I have made some awesome and incredible friends who have been great to work with and most important laugh with.... we all have a job to do coming up and it has been great to have friends to take the pressure off and enjoy all the craziness with.  A bonus for me is that I have learned so much about the "other Navy" outside of the medical realm....I will truly miss my friends I made here..... hopefully we will see eachother again in the future!

One More Time

Well, here we go again..... I had deleted my blog after I got home from the last deployment to Afghanistan truly thinking there would be no more. Luckily my old blog title "Kickin' through the Sand" was still available, so I revived it.  I chose this title because the one commonality with all my deployments has been my training of TaeKwonDo to keep me stress free and focused.  The funny thing is that at a time in my life where things were not going so well and my martial arts career was teetering on the brink of extinction, the tasker for this deployment came about....... in some ways, i believe this was meant to be..... who better to go back over there and do what i was best to do...... save lives and in the downtime also save my TaeKwonDo!!!! I look forward to keeping y'all posted on my progress..........