PNG Medcaps

Hello everyone. Sorry for the delay in getting information out, but it has been so busy here. So we have been floating out near Madang PNG and doing plenty of good things out here. I was down helping out with surgeries the first couple of days. Most of the surgeries were hernia repairs and lipoma removals. I was able to help out with the anesthesia. One of the CRNAs I was working with let me run a few of the cases myself…of coarse with some guidance though. It was fun, but really busy. I was able to get some good practice and experience.

So the medcaps here have seemed surreal. I feel like I was transported to a national geographic magazine. This is a pic of us landing in Joesephstal which was a 30 minute helo ride up into a very remote village in PNG. When we arrived there were people all around us and most of them had never seen outsiders before. They were super friendly and even though several of them carried machetes around, I always felt really safe.

The medcap missions went very well. We saw a large number of patients and they were very appreciative.

One patient in particular grabbed my attention. She was a 7 year old girl who developed a knee injury one month ago.

As you can see her knee is eroded away and she had trouble bending it now. Her father carried her for 5 hours by foot through the jungle terrain just to make it to our medcap site. At the time we didn’t know her diagnosis, but we wanted to get her help. We were able to arrange a helo flight to the Madang General Hospital.

Here is a pic of her being transported. Her father was extremely appreciative and I was really happy that we helped her out. Upon return to the ship I did some reading and found out she had Mycobacterium ulcerans. It is treated through surgery and IV meds so taking her to the hospital should help. The US is picking up the tab for her treatment costs which is great. She was a trooper through the whole process. Can you imagine first having a medical injury like this, seeing a bunch of new different strangers, and then having to get on the largest helicopter in the world and fly away from everything normal that she was accustomed to? Simply amazing! I hope she does well!

We saw lots of interesting skin diseases including a common fungal infection. Due to the moistness of the jungle and the abundance of this fungus in the soil, many people have this painless fungal disease. It isn’t dangerous at all, but they didn’t like the looks of it. This child has it all over his body and you can probably see it on his face. The call it Pupa and it is easier treated with creams and sometimes pills.

The translators we had were great. They were from Madang volunteering and their English was great. Overall it was a great mission. Here are some pics of us leaving. All of the children actually helped us carry chairs and boxes down to the launch site. It was a blast.

I was Officer in charge of the next medcap 2 days later and I have some pretty amazing stories from that. I’ll try to place them by tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by again!

Papa New Guinea (PNG)

Well we just pulled into PNG and we are near Madang city. We are going to be here over a week doing medcap missions. I am going out on the 14th to be the officer in charge of the medcap. The rest of the time I am going to be on the ship working with CRNAs and an anesthesiologist during the surgeries. I am really looking forward to getting some hands on experience. I’ll be sure to send pics ASAP. Take care!

Singapore Sling!

Well hello everyone! The last 3 days I have had the distinct pleasure of being in Singapore. Singapore is one of the nicest and cleanest places I have ever been. It felt like a very US like city except most of the people there are Asian or Indian. It was founded by the British a long time ago and still has a lot of similarities. One, everyone speaks English, which was a nice change of pace. Their subway system was amazing. 90 cents to pretty much go anywhere. One had to “mind the gap” too as you boarded.

Here are some pics of downtown Singapore. Also are some pics of me and a few friends. They had Hoegarden on tap which was excellent. The food was also incredible. I had sushi, Thai food, and Indian food there. Beats any Asian or Indian food that I have had in the US. They only problem with Singapore is the price of beer. One beer cost about 10 US dollars…crazy! I did buy a Singapore Sling at the world famous Raffles Hotel. It was 26 Singaporean dollars which was about $17. I have never spent that much on a drink before!

We had a blast in Singapore and yes I did a lot of shopping. Jen, don’t check the credit card statement, it will be all worth it when you get the package.

Now I am back on the dreaded ship. We are steaming away to our next destination. We should be there in a few days. I’ll update everyone when we get there. I will be going on 1-2 more Medcaps there and working a lot in the operating room. I’m really looking forward to the OR time. I did find out that I will be going out on another excursion to Micronesia for a week coming up soon. It won’t be as rough as the Philippines, but it will be a week out on land doing medical missions. Should be fun. Well I love you guys and thanks for stopping in again. I’ll update you more when we get to the next place.

Liberty in Vietnam

Well I ended up having a pretty good time while on liberty in Vietnam. It was good to finally get free time away from the medcap missions. The top picture is of Matt and I at the Citadel. It was a large temple, but unfortunately we were not able to take pictures inside.

We were able to go out on a small boat one day and they had traditional Vietnamese music and dancers while we sailed.

The next pic is of me coming back from our last medcap at sunset.

I don’t know what the structure is in the next picture, but I really liked the view on the other side.

Of course I had to get a picture of me in my whites. We were required to wear them to get to the hotel. I spent one night ashore at the Sandy Beach Resort in Danang. It was fantastic with good food, service, a pool, volleyball, and a beach. It was a very fun 2 day stay there.

Overall, Vietnam was fun and a wonderful experience. We just left and we are on our way to the next port. I’ll let you know when I get there. The next port is strictly a liberty port for a few days. It will be good to have, because it might be the last vacation for awhile since we will be getting really busy soon. I’ll update everyone when we pull into port in a few days.

Seeya!

Fillin' in the gaps

These are a random assortment of pics that I took over the past few weeks. The top one is a picture of the volcano in Legaspi PI. It is still an active volcano. We flew a c-12 around it and they got close. It was a pretty amazing ride. I believe this volcano is one of the 7 wonders of the world, and we got to see it on a clear day.

The next pic is of a sunset over Danang, Vietnam.

The USS Peleliu is in the next one. I am on board an LCU and we are approaching the ship after coming back from Vietnam for the day

You will see the Vietnamese flag being flown at a school in the next pic. This is where I will be tomorrow doing a medcap mission.

Yes I am in body armour in the next one. This was what we had to wear to transit in Jolo to our last medcap there. It was hot as ____ (fill in the blank)

Next is a pic of me with some of our workers and some of the Filipino volunteers. They did an amazing job translating for us!

This was a pic of the entire group after we landed back in Legaspi after our 18 days in the jungle. We were so happy to get back to the ship and I never thought I would be saying that.

The next 2 are pictures of Danang. Everyone is on bikes! The last pic is the 60 that took us up to Legaspi on our final day in the PI. Boy were we happy to fly in that. Did you know they actually have air conditioning in them!

More pics and stories to come from Vietnam after we do our missions here. Take care and thanks again for all the comments. You'd be amazed at how much they help out!

Good Morning Vietnam!

Well, I made it to Danang Vietnam! Today we pulled into port several miles off the coast of Vietnam. I rode an LCU in and we pulled up and I stepped on land. This is the first time since the Vietnam War ended that a US Navy ship has pulled up and allowed military personnel ashore. It was actually a really cool experience. The people were extremely friendly and most were very happy to see us there. We drove around and surveyed our medcap sites. Danang seemed like a very busy and industrialized city. Everyone was either riding a bike or motorcycle. We saw very few cars and everyone wore hankerchiefs over their mouths and nose to cover up from the exhaust...or possibly avian flu...I heard they take that illness very seriously here. We didn't get the opportunity to eat or hang out at all. This port is technically a work port with our medcap missions, but they are letting us take some liberty. Uniforms are a major issue. They only want us to go out into town in our summer white uniforms. Absolutely no flightsuits, coveralls, or camouflage uniforms are allowed. Our aircraft were also required not only to not fly at all near vietnam, but they needed to be stored away so that they are less visable on the ship. All of our flags on our ships are at half mast and we are required to fly the Vietnamese flag on our tall mast. Wow, lots of restictions, but I guess I understand since relations in the past haven't been that good with Vietnam for obvious reasons. Overall I feel this will be a really good experience. I am looking forward to participating in the medcaps on the 17th and 19th. I will be taking a tour and hanging out 2 days so at least I will have a little bit of fun. It is so hot here! I was sweating so profusley today in the sun..ahhhh. We also watched Good Morning Vietnam yesterday which was pretty funny to see. Well here we are in Danang! I'll be sure to post some pics of Vietnam and the medcaps shortly. See ya!

Cotabato MEDCAPS

Here are some more pictures of our adventures in Cotabato, PI. This particular day we did numerous surgeries removing sebaceous cysts and lipomas. Everyone thinks that they have cancer, so removing a small cyst can really go a long way in helping them out. they would much rather have a scar than to have the mass. One woman in particular had a lipoma on her neck, and her family said she had a hard time finding a huspand because every man thought she had cancer and didn't want to marry her.

In one picture above I am helping the nurse learn how to inject lidocaine in to the face. She did a good job, but I had to correct her angle or else she may have punctured through into the mouth...no cool points for that.

One woman had a cyst on her head, but was really scared of the pain. I assured her she wouldn't feel a thing and she agreed to the surgery. She felt no pain, we removed the cyst, and she was much happier.

I am curious to know what the infection rate out there was. We did our best to ensure clean instruments and a sterile working environment, but as you can see there were many challenges in front of us. we were basically doing surgery on school tables with limited resources. We only had one set of instruments that needed to be cleaned in between cases. I placed everybody on antibiotics just in case though.

There is a picture of us in zodiacs. That is how we got to 2 medcaps. It was so much fun!

Well we are finally done with all of our medcaps in the Philippines. We are just picking up some leftover gear and people now. After we pick them up, we will be moving over to Vietnam. it looks like I will be on 3 medcap missions in Vietnam which will be very interesting. More to come in the next few days...thanks for stopping by again.

50 cal action!

Here is a video of me firing a 50cal out the side window on our 53 helicopter. We threw out barrels with sea dye so that we had a target. Not only did I hit the target while we flew by it, but apparently I destroyed it. Killa Doc is my new name, but don't worry I still enjoy healing more than shooting :)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-28677757324747220

Southern Philippines and Tawi Tawi

Alright, as promised here are a few pics of my journeys to the first several medcaps. I am still working on gathering up pics from Jolo. The first pic is of me in Taui-Taui, as we landed off from a 60 helo. The next pic is of our living arrangments there. Yes those tents were blasted hot! Our camp was on a tennis court and the locals would just look in through the fence all day long. I felt like I was a zoo animal on display :)

The 3rd pic is myself and Beth removing a lipoma from a guy's back that was the size of a fist. it was very deep to, and I know because I saw lung :) All the kids made smiles with their fingers so that is what I was doing in that pic.

The next pic myself and HM2 Jackson removed a sebaceous cyst the size of an orange from this guy's leg. It had been there 15 years and he was so happy to have it gone.

The bus in the next pic was public transportation and they would pack as many people as possible into these crazy looking bikes and buses

Yummy MREs(Meals Ready to Eat) . I had my share of these over the weeks. The next 2 pics were of us and all the happy kids at Taui taui. i couldn't believe how happy they were given their living conditions.

The next pic is of the thick jungle we flew over. so many peopl live on the water with their houses on stilts. Some people do it to avoid bugs, but most can't afford to buy land or they are forced to live in the water due to them being water gypsies. they will just throw down 4 poles and put up a house. these houses soon turn into small villages..crazy

Well I hope you enjoyed my pics. More to come. Right now I am back on the ship, safe and sound.