Catch my breath

It seems like forever since I wrote. When I left off, we were planning a trip to see the Northern Lights. I got home from work and went to bed by 1900. I got a good solid 5 hours of sleep and felt pretty darn good. Several people were going, some of us dressed warmly and some of them were, well not. We had one army personnel in shorts and another in just a sweatshirt. I seriously asked them if they knew they were in the Arctic circle. The reply? We are army, we are tough.

We made it out to cemetary hill by 0200. The clouds had moved in. It took about 5 minutes for the lesser prepared to get back in the van. After 20 minutes, folks began to give up. I was dressed for staying out awhile so I felt fine. There were a few faint specks of light in the distance. Nothing like a 3 should look like. Foiled by cloud cover. Folks threw in the towel and back down we went.

It was a little hard to go back to sleep. I decided to sleep in and do MRE breakfast in the room. It was nice quiet time. I took a long walk to the clinic. Stopped by the new NPS building and got my passport stamped. Yes I am a National Park nerd. They had 5 stamps for the area.

The clinic was even more crowded thursday. There were additional docs that had flown in from other clinics. Kotzebue is small so space was an issue for most of the day. Plus, there was some confusion on what they should do and they didn't have a clue that I was supposed to be in charge. Not that it would matter to a full bird colonel what I said. My team worked hard and efficiently and got people taken care of. There were a few follow-ups and it was nice to get some closure on some cases. I had a small child with severe atopic dermatitis that had gotten infected on his face. I had a great counselling session with a man whose hypertension was uncontrolled. I don't think anyone had taken the time to explain the consequences to him. At the end of the visit he thanked me and went to get his prescription. A couple of hours later, he reappeared. He greeted me in the hallway and told me that I had added years to his life. In appreciation he presented me with an Ulu that he had made himself. The Ulu is an Eskimo knife. The blade is stainless steel and it has a caribou handle. I almost cried. It is one of the nicest things any patient has said or done for me on one of these trips.


I had arranged for the art gallery to stay open one hour later (5-6PM) thursday so I could shop on my last day after work. About an hour or so before end of clinic, my boss came by to tell me that there was a 1700 meeting that I needed to attend. Problem. Fortunately my Internal medicine captain is a great guy. He told me to go now and he would handle clinic. I took off quick. There were large groups of military personnel going to the gallery. Were they buying my stuff? All these folks in from the villages were roaming free. I walked into the gallery and it was half empty. My only saving grace is that most folks considered the place too pricey to buy anything or else it would all be gone. I was able to purchase everything I went for. The only way to get mammoth is to buy it from a native. It is illegal for the rest of us to go dig it up. I bought myself a piece of fossilized mammoth carved to look like a seal. I also bought a birch basket. Good memories for me.

I hustled back to clinic and they had finished up without me. I love my team and I have made some good friends. I tried to talk my captain and my SRA into crossing to the Guard. Can't blame a person for trying. Off to the meeting I go. All the leads for the different villages are present. We talk about turning in final reports (AARs) and various admin things. The command team is very pleased with how things went. They stress how happy the general staff was on their visit. Finally they hand out a copy of the chalks so we will know when we are flying out. I am on the first chalk! At the end, they give us a large pile of blue folders. Each one has certified orders and a certificate for each of our people and now they need to be distributed. My first thought was I would have loved these at the beginning of the day when all my people were here working. I spend several hours tracking down my team and handing them out. I finally finish around 2000.

My roommate wants to order a pizza to celebrate our last night here. She's been pretty unhappy about how things have gone the entire time. While I have been unhappy with communication issues, I have enjoyed my experience with the people here and would do it again. FYI, a large pizza in the Arctic circle runs 30 dollars. There is one pizza place in town, Bison Pizza, and it is pretty good.

I have thoughts of going out on the ice to see ice fishing. It is the one activity I never got around to. I am all too happy to pack my bags in preparation for leaving. I take one last walk to the large window at the end of the hall to look out on the frozen bay. It is a gorgeous sight.