Tonight Corey and I were able to go to Awana at our church in GA. Afterwards I was on my way to pick Corey up when one of the ladies said that the dad of a couple of the kids was a medic and was wondering where/when Justin was injured. I talked to him for a little bit and it turns out that he was in the field hospital where the helicopter took Justin after his guys got him off the mountain. I showed him a picture of Justin and he recognized him. He seemed a little shaken up. He told me that with as many guys go through the field hospital, he copes by trying not to look at their faces. I was glad to be able to tell him how well Justin is doing. He sees soldiers when they’re in very rough shape, but it’s probably very rare to find out how they’re doing 6 months down the road except in the cases where the soldier doesn’t make it. That got me thinking about a few things regarding combat medics.
One type of combat medic is the one who is attached to a platoon. These soldiers train with the platoon before a deployment. They build trust and often friendships. The guy that he’s stitching up after getting shot or applying a tourniquet to after being in an explosion was the guy he sat next to and laughed with at a backyard BBQ a few months earlier. He does everything in his power to make sure his buddies survive and likely wonders if it was enough. He is most likely the first medical attention his platoon receives and his job is to get them stable and ready to transport to the field hospital. After that, they can only hope and pray that they’ll see their friends again. Obviously some wounds aren’t as critical as others, but others may haunt them.
Another type is like the man I met tonight. Soldiers come though the field hospital in pretty rough shape. Justin probably doesn’t remember much, if any, of his time at the field hospital. He was on some pretty strong pain killers. And as bad of a condition as Justin was in at the field hospital, I’m sure they saw much worse. Having to see so many soldiers severely wounded and others that are barely alive has got to be tough. It’s hard for me sometimes at Walter Reed to look around and see so many broken bodies, but at least I get to see the positives – the unbroken spirits, the families together living life as strange as the Walter Reed life may be, and these brave men and women pushing themselves toward recovery. The medics at the field hospital just see the bad stuff and very rarely have an image of those soldiers down the road of recovery to replace the one they have of them at their worst.
As with all of our military service men and women, medics need your prayers. Prayers for safety when deployed and prayers for the peace that only God can give to help them after the deployments. They’ve seen so much while helping so many. It’s because of men and women who choose to be combat medics that my husband is still alive. I’m so thankful for the man I met tonight, the medic attached to Justin’s platoon, and others like them.
I’m also thankful for the non-combat military medical personnel (and civilian doctors and nurses too). Since June, I feel like I’ve received a crash course in nursing except without all the training…and only have one patient that I’m responsible for. I know more about orthopedics, wound care, medications, and other random bits of medical knowledge than I ever thought I would. I can look at Justin’s blood pressure and tell you if it’s high, low, or normal and if it’s high, because I know him, I can usually tell you why. I can rattle off a list of medications and tell you when he takes them, what they’re for, and what will happen if he stops taking certain ones of them. I’ve learned that you can tell what stage in the healing process a wound is in based on the color. I know the difference between a flap procedure and a skin graft. For every bit of knowledge I’ve learned, there’s been a doctor and/or nurse who has explained it to me. They not only took care of Justin, but they also patiently answered the multitude of questions that I have had over the past nearly 8 months. They handled the unpleasant tasks without complaint. They joked around with us and helped lighten the mood on days when there really wasn’t much to smile about. Hospitals tend to be depressing places, but the right type of nurses/techs/medical staff can make the time there a lot more pleasant…though Justin and I would prefer to see them when stopping by the floor to say hi rather than being on the inpatient side again. The more time I spent with the really good staff members on the ward where Justin was inpatient, the more respect I have for people in the medical profession. It’s not a career field I would choose for myself, but I sure appreciate those who have chosen it. To the techs who check vitals and empty bedside commodes, the surgeons who perform life-saving surgeries, the pharmacists who make sure the patients drugs don’t cause bad reactions, and the nurses who do more than they ever receive credit for doing, and everyone else who is in the medical field thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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