on call at AFTH

"I'm the SOD (Surgeon Of the Day) on call tonight here at the Air Force Theater Hospital, and it's just after 1:15 AM. We've just "tucked in" two injured US troops who came from Baghdad, which is sort of a nightly occurrence. One of them had to go back to the OR on arrival here. I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last posted...sorry. It's been a little busier here lately, with lots of Iraqi thoracoabdominal injuries and our fair share of postoperative complications.

Thank the Lord for small victories. And really shout your thanks when you get big victories! We had two of those this week. The first one, who we call Lazarus, is a young man who walked out of the hospital (on crutches) this week after being shot in the groin and bouncing between Iraqi hospitals before being sent to us. The typically courteous referral letter from the Iraqi surgeon, written in both Arabic and English, starts out: "Dear Dr., Kindly I refer to you young male present with bullet injury..." His gunshot destroyed the junction of some important vessels in his groin (probably the same constellation of injuries as this guy) and he was so near death that most of us had never seen someone so physiologically deranged "come back to life." Thus the nom de guerre, Lazarus. (Briefly, for you trauma guys, pH 6.72, BE < -30) Our senior surgeon, the czar, remarked on the phone to me when I called him in the middle of the night, "He's a dead man. Oh, well, I'll come on in." So after a two week hospital stay, we didn't hesitate to snap a photo to remember Lazarus by."
The Alley

H/T Made a Difference