Problog

Hello and welcome to my blog. It is a blog about an Air Force Physician that was reluctantly deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan for 6 months.

I have to admit, I did not exactly volunteer for the deployment, and I was a little anxious about how it would all turn out. I ended up making the best of it, and surprisingly, I actually had a pleasant, life changing, experience.

I decided to keep the blog up and running because I kept on hearing, "Why is it that you only hear the bad news coming from Iraq and Afghanistan." I figured that I was helping spread a positive message about what we are doing over. Even more important, I wanted to continue to spread the word about the plight of the Afghan people, 99.9% of which are the most incredibly friendly people that you will ever meet. The title picture is a great example of that. I have never encountered such genuinely warm and friendly people. It was so strange to see so many people with so little material objects, yet at the same time, filled with so much of the joy that comes with close family ties, abundant friends, and a close knit community. We could definetly learn a lot from them.

You may notice, as you read the blog in its entirety, my arc. I shift from focusing on myself and my personal comforts, to shifting my focus on the Afghan cause. It is very easy to get distracted by the hustle of daily life and the comforts that the U.S. provides. It is really a challenge to awake from that coma and to start to care and think about the welfare of other people unrelated to you. I think it really took me about 4 or 5 months before I really opened my eyes and became personally affected by what I was experiencing. I hope I was able to recreate it.

I have tried to keep the blog squeaky clean so as to not offend anyone (or get me in trouble-I am still in the military). Even though I am a political junky with very strong personal opinions I have been steadfast in keeping this site free of any politics. I was called to do a job and I tried to do it to the best of my ability regardless of my political stance.

I recreated the blog to read more like a book, or should I say blook (get used to the corniness it only gets worse from here) just to make it an easier read. I have removed some names and pictures just to keep it more anonymous. I hope that it helps in making it less about me and more about the cause.

Lastly, in the spirit of the blog, I decided to include the Chipin Widget that I used to raise money for Nazia. If I get any additional money I will send the funds to The Women of Hope Project and someone over in Kabul will discretely give it to her (unless I hear otherwise). You can also contribute directly to the Women of Hope Project website. They are a wonderful cause. If you enjoy this blog then feel free to contribute. I am sure that once you read her story you will be very moved.

So kick back. Get ready to hopefully laugh and definitely cry.
If you like what you read then post a comment. I will be continuously editing this site in an attempt to improve it. Who knows maybe one day it will become a book!

Enjoy. Thanks for reading.

-Shazdoc

Today Show Clip

Chipin Widget

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Classic Make To Smile Blog

"In the fight between you and the world, back the world."
-
Frank ZappaUS musician, singer, & songwriter (1940 - 1993)

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
-e e cummingsUS poet (1894 - 1962)

I hope you enjoy the little slide show that I put together. I just visited a night time bazaar and I could not help but to take a picture of some of the movies that they were selling. I did not change the covers in any way. I had no idea that Mel Gibson and The Rock were in a movie together. Someone needs to tell Quinton Tarentino that when a critic says that a movie is "incomplete" that it is not a good thing. I do not even know what a lot of them mean. Some of them are just a jumble of words that are put together to make an incomprehensible sentence. For instance, "Global Irritable War Piece First." That sounds like a great movie. What about, "North American Provocatove," Are they trying to say Provocative? And lastly, "Men and Women Occult." What does that even mean?

A lot of what I saw today you would probably not want me to talk about because it involves drainage of large amounts of pus and car accident victims. I will spare you the details.

A lot of the teaching I did was on physical exam. I am trying to emphasize the importance of it because I think that it is something that they have let fall by the wayside. The ER physician is sharp and willing to learn, he has just not had someone there to teach him anything. You can build a building and buy a lot of expensive equipment, but if the staff does not know how to use it and the doctors do not know how to practice medicine then it is not of much use.

I used the interpreter as a patient and we went through a complete physical exam. Other doctors such as the Infectious Disease doctor and the Dermatologist were also listening in. I also tried to emphasize the importance of taking vital signs on every patient. So far I have not seen them do it on a single patient. We all practiced taking blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate. It was all very productive.

I saw a family looking kind of lost carrying a little child. I asked them if they needed help and they said that they were trying to find a Pediatrician. The mother said that her child fell down a stairs 20 days ago and still is unable to walk. The Pediatrician was not on duty so I recommended that they return when he was available. Before they left I decided to get a quick X-ray just to make sure that there was no obvious fracture. Here was the film that I got.



I had a hard time seeing the knees so I hand them repeat it minus the hand. I did not see anything obvious but just in case I loaded the X-ray onto my thumb drive and I am going to shoot it over to a Radiologist just to be sure.
-
Here are some of the supplies that I received today. I am going to give them directly to the VCR program. Thanks so much for sending them. Giving them to the VCR program is the best way to guarantee that they will go to people that really need them.



Check out my deployment tips blog if you are deploying soon. It is a work in progress. I plan to add a lot more in the coming days.

I will leave you with a really cute kid that is also a really good business man.

Thanks for reading.

61 comments:

Susan said...

Just a quick note to say hi and to thank you for the update. I know you're ready to get back home to your family but I think I can speak for many when I say we're going to miss your updates and pictures. You must make a note to tell those replacing you they must blog...we need our Kabul fix!

Hope all's well....

Susan

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