Hemoglobin Juice

"The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."
-VoltaireFrench author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)

Today we visited a supply depot that is located at the National Military Hospital (NMH). I am really impressed by the size and appearance of the hospital. From the outside it looks like one you would find in the states.

Visiting the supply depot was kind of fun. It was very interesting for me to go through all of their different meds. Take a look at a few of these.

How about a nice warm drink of Hemoglobin juice- yuck!

I did not know that you could detoxify your liver. I had a lot of friends in college that could have used this.

I am not sure that I would take a medicine with this picture on it.

How about replacing your morning coffee with some of this.

We stopped off at a little shop that we affectionately call 7-11. I bought some soy nuts.

The reason we were visiting NMH was so that one of our preventative medicine techs could pick up some vaccines. He was making a point of personally delivering something like 15,000 doses of different vaccines, such as, hepatitis B, meningitis, polio, etc. He is delivering them a smaller city outside of Kabul. The person delivering the meds is doing it by his own initiative. I was thinking about what he was doing earlier today and it just struck me what a profound impact that his efforts will be having. If through his efforts he prevents just one case of polio or one case of meningitis then I believe that he will have more of a significant impact on Affghanistan then most people have during their entire deployment. What a wonderful thing he is doing for the people, most importantly the children, of Afghanistan.

I will continue my discussion of Afghan history and culture. I copied this right out of a travel book.

The King

King Zahir Shar returned to Kabul from Italy in April 2002 after 29 years in exile. For many Afghans, especially the older generation, the king’s 40-year rule from 1933 is regarded as a period of peace and stability when women were educated and a free press encouraged. Zahir shah was born Oct 15th 1914 and educated in Kabul and Paris. He became king in 1933 just hours after his father’s assassination. But his cousin and a former prime minister, Mohammad Daud, deposed the king during a coup in July 1973 while he was receiving medical treatment in Italy, bringing to an end the rule of the Durrani dynasty and a monarchy in Afghanistan. Daud declared himself president of a new Republic of Afghanistan. In 2002 the king returned to Kabul from Rome expressing no political ambitions. Later that year he opened the June Loya Jirga grand assembly at which there were moves to have him reinstated.

I think I am officially over the deployment hump (I have reached the half way point). I can feel a light breeze on my face as I begin my initial coast down the hill. I hope that these next few months go by just as fast.

A Soldiers Angels buddy of mine sent me this great link to her website. Take a look. They are doing a lot of really great things for the troops.

http://azsoldiersangels.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading.