When I finished my bike ride yesterday evening, I stopped by the clinic to get some water, and there was a literal pyramid of packages which had been retrieved from the mail room and carefully stacked in my office.

The “foundation” of the pyramid was a package from CPT Aaron Smith, one of my buddies from Georgia, who has recently learned that he will be heading out here for 12 months. Aaron sent a massive box full of everything under the sun: hard candies, Twizzlers, Starburst, candy bars, cookies, magazines, potato chips, Chex mix, you name it. This was a motherlode of goodies, and greatly appreciated (see below).

Also in the “pyramid” were three boxes from Eisenhower AMC Oncology nurses, Jan Edwards and Maria Lopez. In these boxes, Jan sent some delicious Wasabi nuts, cans of mixed nuts, candies, M&Ms, and Maria added four different hot sauces. Lest I forget, there were also boxes of bona fide Hostess Twinkies and Ding Dongs, one of which will serve as the highly-coveted prize for our Medical Jeopardy tournament tonight.

Finally, Lorri sent me a box of goodies and other stuff, including good quality pens (always in demand around here), doughnuts (woo-hoo!), and some Crystal Light packages, which are like gold around here.

Because we have had the mail drought, my medics were ravenous when I showed them all of this stuff this AM, and we doled out some of it among them, put some in the little baskets laying around our clinic for the patients, and this basically made for a very happy day in the Troop Medical Clinic today. Also, our internet access has suddenly sped up from “slow crawl” to just plain “crawl” which also has us all in a better mood.

To CPT Smith, Jan Edwards, Maria Lopez, and of course Lorri: thanks very much, from the bottom of my heart, for your kindness and generosity. And for the considerable time it took for you to buy, wrap, box, and send all of these great things to us. I, for one, am greatly appreciative, and my medics are as well.