long days

The past few days have been incredibly busy! I have gotten an average of about 4 hours of sleep each night, and somehow I am still alive! Haha! My night shift actually worked out pretty well. We mostly did pre-op iv medications for the next day. The military uses a computer system called CHCS, and we don’t have access to it yet, so I just watched to other night tech input all of the orders and learned the system from him. We mixed mostly cefazolin for the surgeries, and had a pretty slow night other than that. At midnight there were “midrats” served in the mess decks. “Midrats” are midnight rations that consist mostly of leftovers from dinner. We weren’t exactly excited to eat the same thing again, so we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead. The rest of the night was relatively uneventful, but we had to stay in the pharmacy in case someone would need something stat. When I got off at 6:45am, I slept for a couple hours and then had to work again at 2pm until midnight. Somehow, that shift felt longer than the night shift. On Tuesday, I was at the MEDCAP at Phuoc Hoa so I had to muster at 5:00am and take the Bandaid to shore. On Wednesday, I had to prepack medicine on the pier. I was with one other pharmacy technician all day counting out meds and putting them in little ziplock bags to take to the MEDCAPs. The military and civilians who have liberty also have to stop by the pier and help us for about 30 minutes before they are allowed to take the bus into town. On Thursday, I was at the MEDCAP in Nhon Khan and when I got back onboard the Mercy I went to the closing reception for the Vietnam mission. There were a limited number of people invited, but I was one of the ones chosen to represent Project HOPE. I met up with some of the nursing students who are with Project HOPE too, and we went up to the flight deck for the reception. It was a really nice evening of mingling and meeting a lot of people. The commodore and the Japanese ambassador spoke and welcomed everyone. They served food and drinks, and then they cut the cake with a sword. It was a beautiful night and the Navy band was playing the entire time. Towards the end of the night everyone started to dance on the flight deck, and it was a really fun time. The band kept trying to call it and night and everyone wanted one more song, one more song, one more song. So we danced for a long time, and finally the party was over around 2300. The next morning, on Friday, I had to muster at 5am again to head to the pier and take a final inventory of all of the medications that we had left over. We spent the day counting everything that we didn’t use at the MEDCAPs in Vietnam and packaged it up to load back on the boat and take it to Cambodia. After our jobs are done for the day, we usually get a few hours of liberty while we are still on shore. We take the liberty bus to into town and get to spend a few hours walking around Qui Nhon and eating Vietnamese food. It is so interesting how to city comes alive after the sun goes down and it gets a little cooler outside! There are always so many people walking the streets and socializing at night. We have all had a lot of fun during this portion of the mission in Vietnam, but we have also had a lot of work to do. It seems like the pharmacy is always working so much harder and longer than the rest of the medical personnel on the Mercy. But maybe I’m just biased, haha. So today, we had to muster in the pharmacy at 7:30am. It was the first time that we had to stand in a military formation and stand at attention. Needless to say, I was clueless and probably stuck out like a sore thumb. Then we cleaned the pharmacy and restocked all of the medicine that had been at the pier. It has been another long day! Now I am waiting up until 1:30am for the World Cup match between USA and England. This game better be worth my lack of sleep! Come on USA!