Too many to count, and innocence lost - Boston Marathon 2013

PHOTO BY AP PHOTO/CHARLES KRUPA

I remember the first time I was in the middle of danger.  I hadn't been in Iraq for 24 hours when I was walking to the chow tent for breakfast, and we heard "whiiiiiiiiiiizz", and saw plumes of smoke and flying debris.

I had no idea what a mortar looked like or sounded like.  But really fast, we learned because the closest protective bunker was about 50 yards away.  We literally dodged mortars all around us trying to get there, and when we finally reached the bunker, we stayed in there for a good 5 minutes because the mortars kept coming.  This was unusual - usually its one or two, and they're done.  For insurgents to lob over TWENTY mortars into the base was risky, because it exposed them to be discovered.

Welcome to Mosul, Iraq, friends.  Where six months before, someone walked into the dining hall and self-detonated.  The only thing worse than living through that was calling my husband afterwards, knowing that the attack would be on the news.  He was so brave on the phone, but I know he was dying inside.

And then there was the time when we were in the chow hall, and we heard the explosion - a mortar hit the generator just outside the hall, throwing us out of our chairs onto the concrete floor.

Then there was the time where a mortar landed in the handwashing station just outside the chowhall at 5PM.  It didn't detonate.

Then, two weeks before I was to come home, a mortar landed 20 meters from my CHU (containerized housing unit - a trailer, essentially).  I woke up to the boom, and flying debris hitting my trailer.  At that point, I thought I was going to die.  When I saw my neighbor later that day, she told me that she was on her way to take out her garbage when she decided to start her coffee pot first.  The mortar landed right by the dumpster, and coffee saved her life.

And all these were just from my first tour.  The second tour, shit got closer.  Once when I was in the makeshift bathroom at a command outpost in Tarmiyah (yes, folks, I was sitting on the can, and dirt got in my pants), and the other hit two trailers in my living area, opening up the sides like a tuna can.

Explosions, no matter how few or how many you experience, feel just as frightening as the first time.  The feeling of being knocked off your feet simply by the pressure change these explosions create is surreal, almost Matrix-like.  What's left over is the constant ringing in my ears that keeps me up most nights.

Thankfully, most people in the free world don't experience any of this - and I was always thankful for that.  This all is the bullshit that goes with the territory of being a soldier at war.  But watching what happened at Boston yesterday on the news ripped my heart.  Seeing the runner in the orange jersey fall to the ground from the pressure wave of the blast is something with which I'm all too familiar.  Innocence was lost across so many generations.  And the lives of three - so far, including an 8 year old - are lost.

And sadly, I wasn't surprised.  We can take a million and one precautions and evil will find a way to sneak in.  Frankly, I'm surprised the likes of this had not happened already at Boston or NYC...large events with international presence and the attention of people around the world.  It's a stage that evil craves.

My heart goes out to everyone affected.  And I grieve that my running friends who have nothing to do with Iraq or Afghanistan now have a glimpse of how this feels.

But in the meantime - actually, for a lifetime - we remember those who rushed to help, those who crossed the finish line and then ran to someplace to donate blood.  The residents of Boston who opened their homes to strangers.  Evil wants to leave fear and chaos in it's wake.  And in the short term, it will.  But evil only keeps coming back because it's goal is never achieved here...we stand up, we hold out our hand to others, and we drive on.  Goodness and kindness will always win.

I'll take the good over the bad.

The past several weeks in Rochester have been violent weeks.  It is safe to say, and assume, that any person one reads about in the paper, that was critically wounded, due to violence, is on the Kessler Family Burn/Trauma Unit at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Some did not make it, as you may have read.

Many did, and recovered miraculously with minimal impact.

A few of my patients - both victims of violence (VoV) and a few from traumatic accidents - had incredibly positive outlooks and plenty of humor.  Amazing to say, I really loved my past few weeks at work, because of my patients.

A co-worker, who just has a great rapport with every patient we have, asked one VoV I was taking care of: "how does a gentleman, who has been nothing but courteous and strong through all this, get himself (in this predicament)?"

My patient shrugged his shoulders, gave a little smirk, and said candidly - "Drinking!  But from here on out, all you'll see me drinking is Vitamin Water!"  While I expect him, or anyone, to have some hiccups in that road, the fact that he came to that realization speaks volumes.

Another patient, who for all intents and purposes should be partially paralyzed - if not dead - as a result of unprovoked violence but recovered relatively unscathed, had a great sense of humor, joking about how he could be a rapper: "Hey, I'm a statistic now!" he laughed.

And as me and a co-worker were getting ready to transfer him out of the ICU, I asked him if he would like me to call his mom to let him know he was being moved to another floor.  "Nah," he said.  "she's in church now, probably collecting a LOT of money now that I'm a miracle!" 

He even insisted on staying in the same bed he had in the ICU.  "Me and this bed have been through a lot.  This is my BED!  Got blood on it, peed on it.  We're really tight!" 

And then there was a trauma patient, who felt incredibly dizzy when I helped him sit up, and get out of bed to sit in a recliner, 2 days after surgery...

Dizzy he must have been - "Wow, I think I love you!" he giggled.  And as he stood up, he looked at the surgical resident to say "wow, you're a handsome fella."

It's hard to find some good on a unit that deals almost exclusively with all the bad in the world.  But the past few weeks, leading up to my vacation, reaffirms why I love this job so much!