Antigua

Hello all

Frank has been updating my blog for me which I really appreciate. The email here is not user friendly but I am glad to have it. Things are going well here. We are currently achored in Antigua waiting to get things started. We hope to be hopping in the next few days but we will see. I am having trouble uploading phots but I will keep trying. I'll be in touch soon.

Stairs

Today nothing too exciting to report. Just lots of meetings and learning. Just a little side note. I walk up a minimum of 700 steps a day. Yes I have counted. The most that I have kept track of is 1,535 steps. That is just going up steps. So my knees are a little sore. When things get going in the OR my stair climbing I am sure will be drastically reduced. The food here is a bit starchy. My roommates (all navy reserve nurses) said they were going to drag me out of bed at 5am to go and work out with them - we will see how that goes. I am not very optomistic about being committed.

Love
Becky

Monday at Sea

I have had a fun day. We are en route to Antingua. It has been very relaxed and full of activities. We had our steel beach party on the flight deck and proceeded to drive right into a major storm so the party was cut short. The boat is rocking away but I still have had no trouble with sea sickness and I suspect that I won't. Earlier we had a fire drill and an abandoned ship drill. You don't realize how big the flight deck is until you have 95% of the people from the boat on deck and there is still tons of room. I had a meeting with the OR manager and got an update of what the tentative schedule will be. I think tomorrow I will be on the ship getting the rooms ready for surgery and then on Wednesday I will go on shore to do pre-op screening and then hopefully we will start doing surgeries on Thursday. Tonight at the regular meeting we will go over the whole plan while we are in Antigua. It will be nice to start doing something. I am still trying to figure out how I can do pictures. I am taking plenty of them I just at this time don't have a way to transfer them to this computer to upload. I have hardly been outside since I have been here, it is crazy. Believe it or not it is not convienient to go outside because half the time a lot of the decks are closed for the flight deck operations and I don't understand all of the Navy gargin to know what they are saying about where you are alowed to go. I am getting better.
Bye for Now.

First Day On Board

Well I finally can get on the computer!! Not on my account because I can't figure it out yet but some very nice person is letting me use her log in. I can tell already that communication will be very difficult. The computers are few, the demands are many and the time is short. The ship is of course underway and the only thing we can see is blue skies, white fluffy clouds and lots and lots of water!! We left the DR Saturday afternoon and our route to get on the boat was by a smaller boat that took us to the ship where we unloaded onto another boat that then hoisted us up onto the ship deck. The seas were calm so it went very smoothly thank goodness. The ship is gynormous. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the way the ship is set up so the learning curve to understanding how to get around is quite steep. They were not exaggerating when we were told to plan on lots of steps. I AM DYING!!!!! But this is good, right? The air is very humid so I am always glistening. Believe it or not though I am getting use to the stairs and will be a pro stair climber by the time I am done. The food is okay and the water is good. They make their water on the ship with the desalinization process. Everyone here whether military or NGO (non government organization) have been awesome. Very friendly and helpful. I think I was put in the rowdies berething room. I am with three crazy fun girls who are a laugh a minute. They are all nurses as well and are in the Navy reserves. Kathryn is my mentor and is very wonderful and kind. Today I had a bunch of meetings and tonight we will have our little sacrament meeting at 8pm in the small chapel. So today at one of my meeting it was on Acupuncture. The Dr. is very good and I was his subject. I got to be in front of the whole group with my pants legs up, shoes and socks off and peeling legs. It was a little embarrassing but I git over it real quick. I told everyone that I was also a good example of what not do do when you are out in the sun. The Dr. was treating my planters facitis on my left foot. I had needles all over my left foot and up my leg. I had needles in my elbows, one in each ear and one sticking out of my forehead to relax me. I am a skeptic but I have to say that my foot does feel better!! He told me to come and see him everyday for 8 days and he should be able to take care of it. I don't know if I will have the time but I will certainly make the effort. I hope all of you are doing okay. So far I am doing great. I will hopefully be in touch soon.

Love you all

Becky

PS I am not checking my spelling because I don't have time so cut me some slack.

Off to the Ship

Hello again - I don't know when I will be able to write agian - we are now in the lobby waiting for the Navy to come and pick us up. We can see the ship out of our hotel room and it must be huge because it is big from off in the distance. This morning we had the opportunity to meet Elder Cook from the Quorum of the 12. He is here to do training and just so happened to be staying at the same hotel we are. He took the time to talk with all of us and it was a nice visit. We have also met up with other medical groups who are also serving on the ship. they are not LDS but love hanging around with us. What can I say, we are a fun group and very non threatening. We all are wearing our blue polo shirt that the church provided us, with our missionary looking name tags. We have had lots of people stop and look or ask what it is we will be doing. We still don't know if we will get to the ship by helicopter (which we all hope) or if it will be by boat, which I understand is quite and interesting experience (which we don't want). To all of you who think I will be having fun in the sun, this could not be further from the truth. Apparently I will be on the ship the whole time, and not only on the ship, but in the belly of the ship. So it is my understanding that I will become a creature of the underground and come up only for the required 10 min sun exposure once a day. I think my body is going to be is sun withdraw mode for a while and I will have to be reintroduced to the sun when I am finished. Good thing Lake Powell is right around the corner. Well I am off and I will hopefully be in touch soon. Love you all. Becky

Arrived Safely

Well day one in the rears. It consisted of unevenful travel, a crazy drive to the hotel, a trip to the beautiful Santo Domingo Temple, dinner at a local pizzaria that was very yummy for our starving bellies, and then a very comfy night sleep at the Court Yard Marriot.

I'm off

Well I am off. I am trying to update while I sit here in the Miami airport. My departure was a bit more difficult than I anticipated. Frank and I will really miss each other. Airport goodbyes are difficult when one like me wants to sob like a baby. But I made it on the plane and now I am more than half way there so I guess there is no turning back, not that I would want to. I am not sure how often I will be able to update my blog so any chance I get I will. Bye until next time.