May 23, 2005
Monday: The day started out normally - treatments, rounds, etc. Mom had called in the morning and had asked if we were doing anything exciting today. I said, nah - same ol’, same ol’. LOL. Soon after rounds though, I heard that we had a gunshot wound coming in. I said, what!? Apparently, someone had the bright idea of building a horse stable next to a shooting range, or a shooting range next to a horse stable (not sure which came first). Well, today they had their first injury. It was due in at 9:30 am. I joked that we had a GSW coming in (like on ER). Goncalo got a kick out of that - he hadn’t heard that acronym. There had been a horse scheduled at 8:30 am for radiographs but hadn’t shown up yet, so they started working on the scintigraphy from yesterday. Finally, the radiograph horse showed up, but they still weren’t done with the first horse. After an hour long wait, Trish finally had enough and told them we’d have to put the horse in a stall - so they wouldn’t have to sit out there forever in the heat. It’s just another example of poor planning and bad circumstances. The stable that was bringing the horse didn’t know it had an appointment, so they were late due to no fault of their own. Then the emergency came in and we had to get that one in for radiographs as well.
As the emergency truck came in, they pulled up very close to the hospital. The vans usually don’t do this - they have a certain unloading area that is far away from the entrance and then they are supposed to walk the horses over. Well, given this and what it was coming in for, I thought for sure we’d be looking at a devastating injury. Flopping leg, blood everywhere, frantic horse… something. But as they opened the compartments and finally got to the horse inside, there stood a perfectly normal horse! It had a little bandage on its forearm. That was it. All that hoopla for basically nothing. We unloaded the horse, took it straight to radiology. Pretty interesting case - the bullet was in the soft tissue and it didn’t seem to have hit bone or anything. The decision was made to leave it in there and put the horse on IV antibiotics. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just pop in there and pull it out - they could even do it standing I think. But the explanation will always escape me because I can’t ask questions here.
So we placed the horse in the stall and finally got to the dropped off horse. After that, the neuro horse was brought up to see if trauma had caused the neuro deficits. Can’t really tell.
I needed to go to the grocery store - you can only eat salad every day for so long. So I asked AM and Dr Jami (Hawkins was giving a tour) and then asked Trish if she wouldn’t mind bringing me to the store. I really didn’t want to have to call a driver and figured Trish could just drop me off on the way home for break. She needed stuff anyway, so that was great. I spent some time in there and bought too much for the 7 days I have left, but it was good. I was very hungry - so that didn’t help much! What’s funny about this place is that it’s called “Safest Way” - I’ve heard of “Safeway”’s back home - but I guess this is better. ‘Cause it’s the “Safest” - lol. They have a huge selection of everything - what was amazing was that they had every kind of fruit juices you can imagine. Much better than the grocery stores on St Kitts!
I returned to the hospital, ate lunch (yummm)… and then laid down for a nap. Got up and did 6 pm treatments. Goncalo and Dr Haines had invited me to go out with them to this mall that had just opened. I was really dreading asking Dr Hawkins to go out, but Goncalo said, don’t worry since you are with a clinician. So that was nice. We took off and this mall is about 15 minutes away or so. We got there at 9:40 pm… but unfortunately, the mall closes at 10 pm! Most malls are actually open until about 1 am, so this was a little unusual. This place is so huge, they have it divided into “centers”. India Center, Tunisia Center, etc. They have three Starbucks in there. And it looks like something out of Vegas - it was so ornate and beautiful - it was unbelievable. The only time I didn’t have my camera with me! I picked up a brochure about the place, but even I could have taken better pictures of the place! As we walked through the India Center there was a large (almost life-sized) statue of an elephant. I was walking past, jaw open, and kicking myself for not bringing my camera (but who’da thunk to bring a camera to a mall!??!). After a while, we picked up the brochure and Dr Haines points out the elephant… He says, oh look, they have an elephant! I said, yeah, didn’t you see it when we walked by it?! He said no - lol. And there was another supermarket in there! Goncalo needed something so we took a little trip around the isles. Although I had already been to the grocery store, I saw some tea I wanted so I picked that up, along with some sweetener and cream. They were actually turning off the lights, so I said to Dr Haines that I was going to get in line. I got into the “less than 10 items” line, but of course at this point, no one was paying much attention. I was standing there in line and people were getting in line in front of me. I was a little aggravated. Then all of a sudden, I saw Dr Haines outside of the supermarket walking down the hallway. I couldn’t see Goncalo so I figured they were together and were taking off! I panicked. I’ve been in situations before where I’ve been with a group and been left - and while at home it would just be a minor inconvenience, here it would be very scary! So I dropped the stuff on a shelf and took off. I couldn’t find Dr Haines anywhere, so I went back to the store - relying on the old adage: “if you get lost, go back to where you first were”. I hoped that they would realize I wasn’t with them and come back! Finally, after a few minutes, I saw Dr Haines coming around the corner, without Goncalo. I breathed a sigh of relief and went over to him empty-handed. He looked at me and said, you didn’t get anything? I said, no - and then told him about my little freak-out! We had a good laugh about it. Goncalo was still in line, so we waited a while for him.
We headed to the parking lot and towards home. On the way, we went through the marina (which isn’t what I would think of when someone said marina) - there’s just so much construction going on here, it’s amazing. Apparently they are building another mall - but this one has a ski slope in it! The bottom will rotate so you won’t go down the same hill twice. They are really big on their malls. At one point, they were building the largest mall in the world - then they found out they were 5 square feet short of reaching that goal. Instead of just adding a room or something, they continued with the building and decided to build an even bigger one at another site. So now they’ll have the first and third largest in the world.
Dr Haines pointed out several places as we passed by. We even went past the “beach palace” where they had their Christmas party. Apparently the sheik has Thompson’s gazelles running all around the place just like pets. That would be too cool.
We returned home to finish up treatments and then I headed to bed, quite wound up from the outing.
As the emergency truck came in, they pulled up very close to the hospital. The vans usually don’t do this - they have a certain unloading area that is far away from the entrance and then they are supposed to walk the horses over. Well, given this and what it was coming in for, I thought for sure we’d be looking at a devastating injury. Flopping leg, blood everywhere, frantic horse… something. But as they opened the compartments and finally got to the horse inside, there stood a perfectly normal horse! It had a little bandage on its forearm. That was it. All that hoopla for basically nothing. We unloaded the horse, took it straight to radiology. Pretty interesting case - the bullet was in the soft tissue and it didn’t seem to have hit bone or anything. The decision was made to leave it in there and put the horse on IV antibiotics. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just pop in there and pull it out - they could even do it standing I think. But the explanation will always escape me because I can’t ask questions here.
So we placed the horse in the stall and finally got to the dropped off horse. After that, the neuro horse was brought up to see if trauma had caused the neuro deficits. Can’t really tell.
I needed to go to the grocery store - you can only eat salad every day for so long. So I asked AM and Dr Jami (Hawkins was giving a tour) and then asked Trish if she wouldn’t mind bringing me to the store. I really didn’t want to have to call a driver and figured Trish could just drop me off on the way home for break. She needed stuff anyway, so that was great. I spent some time in there and bought too much for the 7 days I have left, but it was good. I was very hungry - so that didn’t help much! What’s funny about this place is that it’s called “Safest Way” - I’ve heard of “Safeway”’s back home - but I guess this is better. ‘Cause it’s the “Safest” - lol. They have a huge selection of everything - what was amazing was that they had every kind of fruit juices you can imagine. Much better than the grocery stores on St Kitts!
I returned to the hospital, ate lunch (yummm)… and then laid down for a nap. Got up and did 6 pm treatments. Goncalo and Dr Haines had invited me to go out with them to this mall that had just opened. I was really dreading asking Dr Hawkins to go out, but Goncalo said, don’t worry since you are with a clinician. So that was nice. We took off and this mall is about 15 minutes away or so. We got there at 9:40 pm… but unfortunately, the mall closes at 10 pm! Most malls are actually open until about 1 am, so this was a little unusual. This place is so huge, they have it divided into “centers”. India Center, Tunisia Center, etc. They have three Starbucks in there. And it looks like something out of Vegas - it was so ornate and beautiful - it was unbelievable. The only time I didn’t have my camera with me! I picked up a brochure about the place, but even I could have taken better pictures of the place! As we walked through the India Center there was a large (almost life-sized) statue of an elephant. I was walking past, jaw open, and kicking myself for not bringing my camera (but who’da thunk to bring a camera to a mall!??!). After a while, we picked up the brochure and Dr Haines points out the elephant… He says, oh look, they have an elephant! I said, yeah, didn’t you see it when we walked by it?! He said no - lol. And there was another supermarket in there! Goncalo needed something so we took a little trip around the isles. Although I had already been to the grocery store, I saw some tea I wanted so I picked that up, along with some sweetener and cream. They were actually turning off the lights, so I said to Dr Haines that I was going to get in line. I got into the “less than 10 items” line, but of course at this point, no one was paying much attention. I was standing there in line and people were getting in line in front of me. I was a little aggravated. Then all of a sudden, I saw Dr Haines outside of the supermarket walking down the hallway. I couldn’t see Goncalo so I figured they were together and were taking off! I panicked. I’ve been in situations before where I’ve been with a group and been left - and while at home it would just be a minor inconvenience, here it would be very scary! So I dropped the stuff on a shelf and took off. I couldn’t find Dr Haines anywhere, so I went back to the store - relying on the old adage: “if you get lost, go back to where you first were”. I hoped that they would realize I wasn’t with them and come back! Finally, after a few minutes, I saw Dr Haines coming around the corner, without Goncalo. I breathed a sigh of relief and went over to him empty-handed. He looked at me and said, you didn’t get anything? I said, no - and then told him about my little freak-out! We had a good laugh about it. Goncalo was still in line, so we waited a while for him.
We headed to the parking lot and towards home. On the way, we went through the marina (which isn’t what I would think of when someone said marina) - there’s just so much construction going on here, it’s amazing. Apparently they are building another mall - but this one has a ski slope in it! The bottom will rotate so you won’t go down the same hill twice. They are really big on their malls. At one point, they were building the largest mall in the world - then they found out they were 5 square feet short of reaching that goal. Instead of just adding a room or something, they continued with the building and decided to build an even bigger one at another site. So now they’ll have the first and third largest in the world.
Dr Haines pointed out several places as we passed by. We even went past the “beach palace” where they had their Christmas party. Apparently the sheik has Thompson’s gazelles running all around the place just like pets. That would be too cool.
We returned home to finish up treatments and then I headed to bed, quite wound up from the outing.