It seems so foreign to be celebrating that I produced urine today, but whoo hoo! This simple bodily function may be the deciding factor as to whether or not I end up on IV fluids (IVFs) today. We're averaging 5-8 volunteers on IVFs per day. It's the first time I've ever seen nurses hooking themselves up to bags of lactated ringers as a prophylactic measure, to get through the night shifts.
It's hot, and the generator for the peds tent/OR is on the fritz. Brian (one of our logistics guys) went to the store to buy bags of ice to place in the beds with the babies in the NICU/PICU, and we opened up most of the walls to allow ventilation in the tent-wards. I suppose that's one of the good things about having a hospital in tents - removable walls. I'm typing this from the logistics tent, and can overhear one of our guys on the phone with the Air Force camp next door - we figure, if their engineers can fix a black hawk helicopter, they can fix up a generator.
Conditions here are harsh, which makes it all the more amazing and inspiring to see people pulling together to take care of each other. Two of the night nurses surprised me with an ice cold coca cola - the best damn soda I've EVER had. They wanted to thank me - the past two nights I've gone in to make IVs for the nurses around midnight, when they were scrambling to get meds out.
~PJ
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