Friday, January 26, 2007

From the logbook...

Yesterday after waiting about two hours for weather I finally launched for my flight. As things would have it, my flight yesterday was purely Flight for Life. I took two returning patients back home to their villages, and then picked up 4 more to bring out to Shell. The patients I brought out ranged from a guy that got hit in the face with a log and knocked out his teeth, another with an overly infected arm, and another gal with advanced stages of what we would call bone cancer.

Our flight for life flights are a lot different than the ones I saw when working in Alamosa. My patients are never sterile. They almost always stink, and are filthy. And, I don't have a medical flight crew that goes with me. I am the nurse/doctor trying to tell everyone to hang on until we get to Shell.

Yesterday when I was landing in Shell, I found out I had another passenger. On final approach to land, I heard a loud chirping right behind me head. Upon landing, I discovered that one of my patients had stuffed a baby monkey in his shirt. I am not sure if it was a pet, or for sale, but he unbuttoned his shirt and searched for a strip of cloth. He began pulling it out and lo and behold, there was a baby monkey attached to the other end. It always amazes me what happens flying here. Most of the time it is very routine and ordinary, but then things happen like this stowaway that I have never even heard of before. It makes for interesting days indeed.

Today, I have the day off since I am on call this weekend. We hope to get some errands done, one of which entails converting our German Shepherd puppy into an "it," if you know what I mean.

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