Lions and Tigers and IEDs, Oh my!

Chris went on a convoy today to pick up another truck for the base.  They made it to C1 and then the highway got shut down- they found three IEDs along the southbound lane (C1 is north of us).   One of our other convoys to another base came upon a blast site where an IED had gone off minutes before.  Seems the natives are restless again. 

I kept myself busy while Chris was gone-I cleaned the inside of the truck, threw out some old junk that was left from the previous medic, checked on the T-wall crew, worked out (45 minutes on the elliptical machine!), met with the BAS Lt. about making rounds with him, checked on ordering some more reference material, etc.

I recieved my flags from Senator Courson today!  I got an American flag and a SC state flag that came with letters certifying that they had flown over the state capitol- too cool!  They are huge, four foot by six foot.  I plan to go fly them tommorow and then hang them on the wall in our new medical clinic (if they ever finish it).  I may change my mind though and just send them home for safe keeping.     

My Turkish patient with the horrible case of athlete's foot came back to see my today.  His feet are remarkably improved although he is still complaining about the skin on his back "burning".  I have no idea what's wrong with his back- it looks perfectly normal, he moves without difficulty, it's not painful to touch, etc.  At first he described it as pain so we gave him Motrin and that didn't work, we tried naproxin and that didn't work, today he decided it was more of a burning- and it had been this way for seven months.  For those of you who are medically inclined, we ruled out any physical exertion, chest pain, shortness of breath, allergic reactions, etc.

I've got an probable STD coming in tommorow.  Oh the joys of remote medicine.  Really though, when it comes down to it, this is why I signed up for this job- it's different.

I've been messing with the website thing again- I changed a few pictures.  I still need to work out a template that I can add text and photos to. 

Well, time to go watch a movie..........