USNS Comfort

[AVGWarhawk]

One of my moms friends has a daughter on the Comfort. I thought I would share it with everyone. Here is her second email. Her first email was about the voyage down.

"Hi everyone!

Sorry I don’t have time to write individually. It’s nuts here. For all the times I have joked about being a combat pediatrician, I am truly a combat pediatrician. I’m getting up to speed on wound care and post-op pain control. My French is improving. I think I managed to tell a mom today that she doesn’t look old enough to have an 18 year old. I think I said that. I might have asked for mashed potatoes. The USA Today reporter told me I’m mentioned in an article today, so look for me (and save it). I might be in again another time talking about my breastmilk bank. The kids are pretty bored. Right now and 11yo and a 9yo are watching an Eddie Murphy video. They don’t speak English, so it’s OK. Still, I hope it’s not Eddie Murphy Raw. Yesterday, they watched Disney movies in Spanish. There is a kid with deep second degree burns on his legs that got debrided in the OR last night. I’m going to consciously sedate him later in the PACU so the wound care nurse can change his dressings. The pain control is the worst. I also have a febrile 2 month old baby growing out gram negative rods from a blood culture. The culture was drawn through an IV, so I don’t know what to believe, but he’s making me a little nervous. Got to go. Please save my emails. I don’t have any time to sit and write these stories down."

E

[GoldenRivet]

good for her

[Jimbuna]

Her family must be sooo proud of her

[AVGWarhawk]

Email update from Erika on the Comfort:


Hi all!

We had what we believe to be the first baby every delivered on the board
the Comfort. A 33 week preemie no less! Mom had a pelvic fracture in
the quake, and OB was trying to get her medevac'd (which was fine with
me), but she started looking bad today, so they delivered. I had a
fairly well-stocked warmer in the OR. I took a picture because the bulb
syringe is freakishly miniature. A NICU nurse from Portsmouth showed up
today with UVC kits (thank goodness!), but I tried not to use it. We
had narcan drawn up but didn't end up needing it. I was standing there
in the delivery room with my Harriet Lane (aka my new best friend)
looking up drug doses. Straightforward NRP, I can handle (even though I
only have 1 meconium aspirator), but this was seriously pushing my
comfort zone, especially since mom got narcotics prior to delivery. The
mask was too big, but it was the smallest one I had. I had oxygen from
a tank but no suction. Anesthesia said they would give me their suction
if they could afford to part with it when the time came, so I just
sucked for all I was worth with my tiny little midget bulb suction and
crossed my fingers. She's doing great and has already taken some
breastmilk (from my breastmilk bank). [Amanda, I need a little advice
about treatment threshold for her for bili. We are going to check a
first one in the morning. Thanks.] Luckily, there are a bunch of NICU
nurses on the peds floor, so the baby is in very good hands. She's very
cute. Some dude from Getty Images was in the OR taking pictures, so
look for that. I'm one of those masked people. I also got interviewed
by the Baltimore Sun and by some woman from Navy public affairs, so
watch for the story. Good stuff. Hope you all are well. We had
another earthquake this morning. It's weird on a boat. The boat just
kind of rocks a lot. It's noticeable but not particularly concerning.


She said they are using morphine like there is no tomorrow. Medical supplies are running down.

[SteamWake]

Cool keep us updated.

I have an aquantince abord that boat as well, although he is ashore now.

Havent heard from him for a few days supposing he is busy.

[AVGWarhawk]

This email exchange is with her dad:

Be glad you have clean, cool quarters and you aren't sleeping in the
humidity, under the stars, in the mud. You Navy folks have it good.
How's the food? Are you getting a variety, or are the meals becoming
routine? Take a lot of pictures. I will need them for the book. I
will be forwarding you a contract for me to be your agent and ghost
writer.

Keep up the good work.

Dad

Erika's response:

Ha ha. You're funny. It's hot as **** on this ship. I just got 2
liters of IV fluid, and my pee is still the color of apple juice. The
ICU was 104 degrees a couple of days ago. It's so hot down here that
equipment is burning out. We haven't had a CT scanner since that big
earthquake 2 days ago. They flew a guy out from GE to work on it.
Supposedly, it will be up today, but there's a huge backlog.

E

[SteamWake]

Funny she dident mention the fire.

[AVGWarhawk]

She might have slept right though it. Her last email last night she stated she was utterly exhausted and was headed to bed. Probably slept like a rock.

[SteamWake]

Its possible that alot of the crew were un aware of the incident.

It happened while they were underway and enroute.

[AVGWarhawk]

No mention by Erika. I'm guessing fire control is damn good then.

[AVGWarhawk]

Haitian babies getting aid on the Comfort:

Hey everyone,

Here are a couple of pics from my ward. Baby Esther is the 33 weeker
(as you can tell from the box). The other picture is a totally cute
little 2 month old named Felix. He smiles and coos at me when I talk to
him. My friend Karen took these pics today.

E

[AVGWarhawk]

Today was really really hard. I thought yesterday was the hardest, but
> today was worse. I'm afraid for tomorrow. Yesterday, I was on the ward
> writing orders until after midnight. I was SO TIRED!! I'm on my feet
> ALL day. It doesn't feel like I am, but they hurt so bad. I woke up at
> 4:30 am with a migraine (from being so damn tired), and never really
> fell back asleep. I ended up taking imitrex, motrin and Tylenol to get
> rid of it. I ate my breakfast, and then went to my morning meeting to
> get my doxycycline (we have to take it every day for malaria
> prophylaxis, which is really funny given that I never go outside except
> for MAYBE 2 minutes in the morning). I was late, so someone gave me
> hers tucked into a tissue. I had forgotten my water bottle (that big
> Thermos bottle has been my best friend), so I ran around looking for it.
> Doxy can get stuck in your esophagus and give you a big painful ulcer if
> you don't take it with lots of water, for some reason. I guess it's
> sticky. Then realized I needed to change into scrubs. Then ran around
> looking for scrubs ("running around" usually involves at least 3 floors
> worth of stairs in each direction, FYI). When I changed out of my
> uniform, I couldn't figure out why I had a tissue in my pocket so I
> threw it away. Long story short, it ended up being a long time between
> taking my doxy (which can make you nauseous if you don't take it with
> food) and my breakfast. I finally got one from the ward and took it,
> and as soon as it hit my system about 30 minutes later, I got
> overwhelmingly nauseous. So I went up 3 flights of stair to sick bay
> for some Zofran. One of the chiefs suggested that I might also like an
> IV fluid bolus. It occurred to me then that I hadn't hardly peed the
> day before. I ended up getting 2 liters of fluid and IV zofran and
> still peed something the color of apple juice. I cannot get back on
> track with my water. The ship is really hot, because it's so hot in
> Haiti, and it's all the AC can do to keep up. Yesterday, I had this
> sore eye and went to optometry where I had some random corneal
> occlusions (ship eye, according to one of the nurses). I felt somewhat
> better, but the ward was really busy. Then someone decided to dump all
> the patients on the Bataan AND the Carl Vinson on us at the same time.
> We got 15 patients in an hour. They weren't stopping at casualty
> receiving, because they were overwhelmed, so they came downstairs
> without admission orders or a note. It was insane!! There were 4
> doctors and 2 nurse practitioners and it was all we could do to keep up.
> The nurses were frantically trying to find bed space as well as give
> pain meds. In the middle of that, this histrionic and very loudly vocal
> 16 year old came back from the OR screaming about how she had to pee but
> didn't want a bed pan. Now, she was having a revision of her foot
> amputation, but her big issue was her pee. She's a big healthy girl and
> doesn't help you, so it takes like 4 or 5 people to get her to the
> bathroom. I finally stole the bedside commode from a little boy who was
> using it for a chair to watch a moving (Beauty and the Beast in
> Spanish); they moved her out to the elevator lobby and put her on the
> commode there. We couldn't get her gurney to the bathroom because the
> TV was in the way. She kept carrying on after a very very healthy dose
> of multiple pain meds, so I finally just gave her some Ativan (same
> family as Valium) to shut her up. I hate that it came to that.
> Internists do that ****, not pediatricians. When things quieted down, I
> was trying to talk in French to the boys watching the movie. I was
> telling them that I like Gaston more than Beauty or the Beast and then I
> started singing the Gaston song. They got a BIG laugh out of that. I'm
> sure they think I am a foolish American doctor, but I made them smile.
> Later in the day, I ran around trying to make a picture of the preemie
> to hang at her mom's bedside in the ICU, so she could see her daughter
> when she wakes up. I finally went down to the office where the
> journalists hang out and got the guy from Getty Images who was in the OR
> when she was born to make himself useful and print out one of his pics.
> He was very nice about it. I ended up eating a protein bar for lunch.
> I must have looked bad by dinnertime, because people kept patting my
> back and looking worried. Whatever. Anyway, I'm going to bed. I'm
> POOPED!!! Can you forward to everyone? I'm too lazy. Thanks.
>
> E

[Jimbuna]

Cute baby

Is that Erika?

[Platapus]

I honour her service to not only her country, but to humanity.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Cute baby

Is that Erika?

Yes. She is a daughter of one of my mom friends. I never met her. She forwards what is going on to my mom and I get it from my mom.