The VOICE of the 1MC

So today was D-day... Departure day for me from the Mercy. It was also the 100th day since I boarded in San Diego! On the 5 hour bus ride to the Capitol city of Phnom Penh we were teasing about missing the overhead announcements from the loud speaker also known as the 1MC. So listed below are some of the announcements you could expect to hear in a daily basis. I am sure I missed a few lines since this was just from memory. But you get the point. I will not miss waking up out of a dead sleep to a 4 am flight quarters announcement! 

The following is a test of the 1MC at the sound of this bell it will be 12 noon **ring** test complete, please regard all further alarms.

Ahhhh mercy... For the knowledge all hands there will be a general Christian service held in the chapel at 0930

Ding ding-- ding ding-- destroyer squadron 7 commander arriving

Ding ding-- ding ding--medical treatment facility Mercy commander arriving

Flight quarters flight quarters the weather decks from frame 40-74 are secured. Refrain from throwing articles overboard, the smoke lamp is out, no flash photography.... The following is a test of the Helo crash alarm. (Siren) test complete, regard all further alarms.

Man down, I repeat man down. Medical response team to tack . __-___-___ (location)

For the knowledge of all hands there will be an ice cream social held on the mess decks at 2030. :)

Please stand by for evening prayer...

MedCAP in Cambodia

I am on a cambodian boat that ferried us from the Mercy to the Cambodian shore for my last MedCAP as a Pacific Partnership Volunteer.  During the MedCAP, we host medical screenings, dental extractions and fillings, and eye exams with custom glasses. I am listening to my music and trying to wake up and as the sun starts shinning through the clouds these lyrics from Casting Crowns song So Much More stand out to me. 

"I will praise You all my days not just for the change You made in me...

I will serve You Lord always for You are my strength when I am weak. I will never be afraid for You are my rock and You protect me." 

I will make that my prayer for today.

In the bus now on the way to our site which is about an hour away. I love seeing Gods creation and how creative He is, making each country so unique. Although very poor, Cambodia is rich in lush green landscape, the rice patties stretch beyond the eye can see and people work hard. They labor for hours in the hot sun to provide for their families and I see a boy no older than 12 year of age directs his oxen strong and bound by a yoke up the road bearing a load of bricks. The land is saturated in water, currently it is rainy season in Cambodia and everything has come to life! This morning, I have seen tons of animals on the side of the road from the bus window including: cattle, chicken, ducks, water buffalo, oxen, dogs, horses, swine, and more chicken!

Many houses are raised off of the ground and you can see how important it is to keep your house from flooding. This is something I always saw in pictures, but seeing the whole community elevated is pretty cool! I noticed the schools alongside of the road all locked up and closed with the children at home or sitting along the rice patties. I asked the Cambodian medical students why the schools were closed and they informed me that all of the Cambodian primary schools are closed due to an epidemic in children called the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. It presents clinically as rashes on the palms, soles and mouth with high fever and many children are dying quickly. Well we have just arrived – I will pick this blog up soon!

 

 (9 hours later after our MedCAP) Due to the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease, we are required to report how many children were seen under 12 years old with symptoms of the disease and of the nearly 200 children, I am happy to say that we had zero cases! Today at our site that was a school with open air classrooms, I worked as the discharge nurse so when patients were done seeing the doctor, dentist or optometrist, they went to pharmacy to pick up any medications and then came to my station. 

The nurses at discharge kept a tally of each service and broke the data down between age and gender. We also reviewed their medications one more time, answered any questions the patients had about the diagnosed the doctor discussed, reviewed lab work again, and referred some patients to come back on Friday for the surgical screening and echocardiograms with the  cardiologist. It was really nice to have the option of telling the patients to come back to be screened by the surgeons rather than just sending them home.

I truly enjoyed teaching the patients about their medications and discussing symptom management in regards to heart conditions and other ailments. The joy of teaching keeps planting a seed in the back of my head that I may want to be an educator one day. 

My Dad's Birthday Card, in 2 languages

This is rainy season, so the mud was horrendous!!! I wish I had navy issued boots, you could just rinse them off, instead my shoes are covered in mud, but overall I managed to keep my feet pretty dry. The power was a little sketchy... the MedCAP location had multiple extension cords and different plugs along the ground through the mud puddles and out in the rain. The temperature was really nice all day. We did have a few brief down pours, but I managed to stay fairly dry! 

The Night-Shift

Serving Dinner - the volunteers rotate while between location

There have been many firsts on this mission, but in the last two days I have switched to the dark side. I was never one of those who could pull an all-nighter studying for exams and in my career thus far I have never been a night-shift nurse. However, I have found that it is probably easier on the USNS Mercy ship to work through the night than it would be in what we would call 'normal' life. There are few windows and you have to make an effort to go outside, so I have gone 3-4 days before I realize I have missed the sun and to be honest, it's just too hot to go outside. Things I have come to appreciate and have a new perspective... The ship still functions at night:

Standing Watch - day and night

- I am thankful to the kitchen crew who put out midrats (midnight rations) for our 'lunch time' meal. 

-I appreciate my corpsman who sweep and swab the deck (floor) at 2am. (Sidenote... I have been swabbing the last two days and every night I try and make the mopping an excuse for going to the gym. My corpsman always shake their heads and say, oh no Miss Kelly swabbing is no substitute for the gym.) So 3:00am comes around and the wards are quiet and sleeping and now is perfect time for the staff to go to the gym in rotations. This keeps everyone from falling asleep!

-Again, such a blessing to get to work out while 'working'.

-The ships security still man their posts and roam the ships P-ways (halls).

-Translators are volunteering on this mission and switching their internal clocks with us in order to make communication possible.

-The Internet is faster! Still dial up speed, but better than trying to load a webpage while on the day shift.

-Chaplain May still has evening Sunday service and my staff covers for me so I can go worship.

-I went to do laundry at 1am and every washer was open!!! I did not have to wait and I could do more than one load!

- When it's 4am here it's 4pm in Oklahoma and 2 pm in California. And I was able to catch up with a friend for an hour because there was no one waiting for the phone after my 20 min limit!!

- The sun rise is very peaceful!

MCS Lowering the Bandaid Boat

Another portion of the ship that I should be more thankful for is the MSC staff. The Military Sealift Command is comprised of Civmars or Civilian Mariners (professional sailors). They run our ship and its pretty important even if much of their work is behind the scenes. Civmars navigate the ship, run the engine room, and perform the maintenance on pretty much everything! 

Something that stood out last night was as I was concluding my shift, I went to watch the sun rise at 0530 and there was a team of six men preparing the ‘band-aid boat’ (our ship to shore transportation) for  the day.

One man fueled the ship as it hung by on crane while two others boarded the band-aid boat and prepared to load it into the water. It truly was a team effort to tether the boat down into the water and ensure it did not hit against the USNS Mercy. Once the band-aid boat hit the water, all the ropes were quickly released put in forward drive to steady out the rocking. 

A the Bandaid boat is ready to welcome patients

Next the Civmars began to raise the sun cover, one man lifted the canvas as the other placed the posts to create a protective cover. Amazing to think that this was all done before the sunrise and this bout would continue shuttling patients and staff to and from the shore in the hot sun clear till midnight. I have a new appreciation for the Civmars!