KUWAIT

EMF-K
Expeditionary Medical Facility - Kuwait

After spending 12 hours at Arifjan, the main military base in Kuwait we drove the 2 hours to Camp Virginia where I'll be spending the next 7 months.  It is a small base on the Western side of Kuwait.  There are about 1,000 permanent party military personnel that live on the base.   The rest of the personnel here are transients meaning they are on their way into or out of Iraq or Afghanistan.  So we provide medical support to the permanent party as well as to the transients.

The entrance to our clinic. The awning to the right is the bathrooms.  That's right, there is no indoor plumbing even in the clinic so if we need a urine sample the patient has to use a porter potty. 

We live about twenty feet away from the clinic.  Since the Corpsmen take turns being on call, and one of our providers is always on call, it's nice that they don't have to walk far in the middle of the night to get to the clinic.  As the only nurse here I'm not assigned a set night call rotation but always sort of on call for nursing things.  Luckily, they haven't needed me at night yet.

Our rooms

I've decorated the inside of my room to make it as cozy as possible.  It helps that my mom sent me a poster with pictures of Bella!!!  We aren't in our rooms very much except on Sunday's which is our only day off but I still wanted to add a little color to the walls.  

From my wonderful Mom!!!! 

The base is pretty good about scheduling different events.  We ran a 5k Relay as a team and every other weekend they have 5k races going on.  On Wednesday they usually have some sort of fitness competition (wi-fit, ab cruch, bicep curl etc.).  On Tuesday's we always go to bingo and so far Danika (the dentist) has won once and Becky (the PA) thought she won but it was a false alarm.  So we're working on teaching her how to play!  Sometimes it feels like we are in a retirement community because the DFAC (cafeteria) is only open during certain times so we schedule our meals together and then schedule which games and social activities we are going to do that day.  Overall it isn't too bad so far though.  Hard to believe we've been here a month!  

Kuwaiti Sunset

Yesterday was our first mild sand storm and it was pretty awful.  By the end of the day there was sand in places you'd never imagine!!  Today is a little better though and it seems to have brought in some cool air so for that we are always thankful.