2010

A new year. Finally get to turn the page on my calendar that I bought at the Canadian exchange. The picture above is the first image on this calendar. If you're looking for heroes from this war, I'll always cast a vote for the medics that fly into hostile territory, often under fire, to bring back the wounded. They do everything in their capacity to keep the person alive in the hopes that if they can do that, then we can do the rest. Many times they are right and we can save the person. Sometimes we can't. When we can't, while we all feel loss and hurt, which is a combination of feelings stemming from hating to see another young person killed and also from the simple fact that the vast majority of us in this line of work really don't like to fail, I suspect that the medics feel the loss in a much more visceral fashion. They've just put their life on the line to rescue a soldier from the field...they did their part...sometimes our part is not enough.

My business has been picking up. Have got to do arteriograms on severely injured people recently, both for diagnostic purposes (to aid the surgeon in planning their procedure once they know the artertial system looks like) and interventional purposes: stopping bleeding. The two most recent: one of the bad guys shot in the leg with arterial bleeding - found the source and placed some tiny coils in the artery to stop the bleeding. The second: one of our guys with a traumatic aneurysm (actual term: pseudoaneurysm; let me explain, no there is too much, let me sum up. Oh, never mind, too much medical info) of his vertebral artery (one of the arteries that goes to the brain) from a piece of grenade shrapnel. The aneurysm ruptured during the case with expected bleeding and racing hearts (ours and his!). I coil embolized it in a short period of time and he did well. His CT the next morning showed that his brain looks normal and he'll likely be fine. Time will tell.

So here's the thing, the chance for me to be over here doing good work comes at the expense of life and limb of our young men and women. I believe that is the definition of a mixed blessing. I expect I'll have more chances to practice my trade over the next several months as the surge rolls in. I pray that we are able to do enough. Time will tell.