Love design!!! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that Ive really...Saturday On The FOB
Posted by Erik Rupard on May 17th, 2008
I am sitting on my bed, in my ten-foot-by-twenty-foot canister housing unit on Al Asad Forward Operating Base in Iraq. My can is small, but it is cozy, well-organized, and fairly clean. The television set has been strategically placed at the farthest distance possible in my little room, in the opposite corner from where I sit. I am watching a live-via-satellite baseball game on the AFN Sports network (a true rarity here except in the wee hours, but this is a weekend day game), and the Mets are beating up on Andy Pettite and the Yankees. Gotta love that.
The guys in the room next to mine are playing Halo, and the occasional obscenity squeezes its muffled way through our shared plastic wall. I usually put up with this for a few minutes, and if it doesn’t stop, I make a little visit next door, which generally results in the occupants going into radio silence mode for the next few hours, or simply leaving the building altogether.
Not a bad day to be a deployed soldier, all things considered. I had an interesting clinic today, in which I saw the following:
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A man with cellulitis of his face, only partly responsive to antibiotics. We took a digital photo today, which will be used for comparison tomorrow; if he is not any better, he will be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics.
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Another pregnant soldier. Her 1st SGT came with her to clinic, and pleaded with me to let her stay for the remaining twelve weeks of the unit’s deployment. (No way, dude. She’ll be on a plane within a week.)
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A 55 year-old department of defense worker with acute gastroenteritis (food poisoning). Imodium didn’t work, so he gets some lomotil, which will shut his guts down, and good.
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A soldier who broke his fifth (a.k.a. “pinky” toe) doing some kind of martial arts at the gym.
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A TCN who was doing some welding and had little white itchy splotches all over his chest and arms. Fungus? Or allergic reaction? Because we can’t do the tests here to definitively know the answer to this question, he got treated for both. RTC if no improvement in 2-3 days.
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A young marine with bruises all over his body, and an abnormal clotting test. Right up the alley of this Hematologist. He got some more tests today. I’ll be discussing the results with his doctor when they are available, but my preliminary feeling is that he got in a fight which he is not admitting (hence the bruises), and the lab was a false positive (it is tricky doing clotting tests, especially in a field environment, and in this case, the test was repeated in the sample sample, with widely varying results). Either way, an interesting case.
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Lots o’ runny noses. (Allegra, to the rescue!)
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A couple of insomniacs, hoping to score some Ambien to undo the fifteen Red Bulls they drank earlier in the day. They left, unsatisfied and still pretty wired.
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A guy with a bad, atypical migraine. I was about to give him some Imitrex (not my favorite drug, for various reasons, the main one being that it doesn’t work as often for atypical migraines), but he fell asleep when I left the room to get his meds, so I backed down a bit and gave him a shot of toradol (a strong NSAID) and sent him home to snooze in his own bed.
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Finally, a Marine CPT who came in for a bicipital tendonitis. On talking with him, he admitted to taking a whole lot of protein supplements, and a nitric-oxide/caffeine mixture called N.O.-Explode (guess which is the active ingredient). Because of this we got a urinalysis on him, to make sure that he isn’t damaging his kidneys with the protein, and the protein came back normal, but his urine showed some glucose. My immediate feeling was that this was likely to be a lab error, because it did not make any sense for a healthy guy to be spilling sugar into his urine. We did a battery of tests, including a repeat of the UA, and suspicions were confirmed. But his kidney function was about seventy-percent of normal, so he and I had a heart-to-heart, in which we discussed the joys of dialysis. Shortly after our discussion, CPT Marine decided to stop taking the protein supplements and high-dose caffeine jolt.
After clinic, I read through some bits of Lorri’s impending novel (it is excellent!), and sent her my thoughts. A couple friends and I had planned to do two of our bike runs in a row, which would come out to an even 27 miles. We were pretty psyched for our “bicycle marathon,” but the wind picked up, some rare clouds gathered over our post, and for only the 3rd time since I arrived here at Al Asad, it rained. An hour later, it was too late for the marathon, and though the rain subsided, the wind had picked up dramatically, which meant that the Brown Cloud Of Death was swirling around our little dust bowl. Three of us decided to brave the wind and the dust and make at least one loop around the post, and I donned my best goggles and hit the road.
The wind blew so hard against me that every turn of the pedals moved my bike forward just a few feet. It was excruciatingly slow-going at the beginning, but I knew that if we could just make it the few miles to the back stretch, that same wind would be our best friend. One member of our party bailed out after about two miles, so that left just CPT Baker and I (ironically, the oldest guys in our whole company). Baker is one of those sickeningly fit dudes who eats nothing but green things, and has absolutely no discernible fat, and he led the way up the big hill by the reservoir, past the Ugandan guards with the David Ortiz smiles (zham-bo!), and finally, around the corner, onto the back stretch, where we absolutely cruised for the next ten miles.
As we rode effortlessly with the wind at our backs, we talked a bit, looked for hyenas, and noted how we couldn’t see ten yards in front of us. It was like riding in a dense fog, and kind of neat. At one point a very loud military plane took off to our left, with the same incredibly loud screaming noise as usual, but we could not see a thing. Kind of eerie.
We finally made it around the flight line, down the hill and past the guards, and finally back to the cans, where our company was (unbeknownst to us) awaiting our return, with barbecue at the ready. SPC Hert grilled some truly great burgers, and we sat out in the wind, eating our delicious, dusty burgers and talking about home.
[Final: Mets 7, Yankees 4. Woo-hoo!]
May 18th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Sounds like an awesome ride E.
Since I can’t be there too, I’ll try to experience it vicariously.
Ha, ha.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Erik,
Have you ever received that other box? I wonder where it is if you haven’t.
I need to have a hernia repaired in a few weeks. I need some mesh put in and fix a post operative hole left by my last Dr. when I had my laparotomy. this word is not in my Word dictionary, so sorry if i misspelled it. I think the original Dr. should pay for it, since it wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t done the surgery. What do you think? she ( the surgeon) will put a mesh thingy in threre , as the hernia area is really thin walled and weak.
I’m glad you have a new p.a. I am sure that is a big help. All those aches and pains would get old for an old hemonker such as yourself. I am also glad that you are healthy, and enjoying riding your bike around the base. Just be careful! Don’t you get tired of grown ups telling you how to live your life? Makes for some very interesting talk, but I could picture it as very annoying.
All my love to you. I miss you and can’t wait to see you. Christian goes to China town on Tues in NYC. It should be fun. Remember when we would go in San francisco and see those weird smoked flat ducks hanging in the windows? Also that weird rice candy. He should have fun.I hope he gets some cultural growth from the trip besides seeing the Chinese Mafia at work.
Talk to you soon. Thanks for the case hx. It was so interesting to read them. Love, mit
May 18th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I’m writing, tonight under my pen name of above. O.K., It’s really Dudley. I’m at the Clown’s residence to do heavy metal on the Anundson deck. We were eagerly engaged, all day Saturday, in a worthy cause of using brute force to disassemble their yellow pine deck of small size. B.F., if properly applied, usually carries the day as it did in this case. We worked steadily from 0830 to 1530 and at the end of the day had a sizable pile of sticks; still time enough to watch Danny’s baseball team (Rockhounds) beat the soxs off the Timber Rattlers of Sinking Springs. Many great hits and plays for little tads. We’ll be back next week to lay out and get as much done on the deck over the holiday as possible.
E, your latest blog was fabulous! I could almost taste those burgers. Thanks for taking so much time out of your day to record your observations and activities. We appreciate being able to be near you to this extent. Keep on keeping on!
Wade is still working in Middletown and he and I will return home on Monday. Looking foward to your next very well done blog.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
1. Al Asad is not a FOB, it’s an air field.
2. Let the soldiers be soldiers and play HALO. Invest in some ear phones.
3. Kidneys 70% of normal? You figured this out when you don’t have testing procedures to determine if Haji had a fungus or an allergic reacton? Hard to believe. Even harder to believe is caused by caffine and N.O. Explode. 80% of the Army would have 70% kidneys if that was the case.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Al Asad is repeatedly called an FOB by a ton of military personnel.
Caffeine has an “e”.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Ahh, our blog’s first troll sighting. Very quaint. I won’t be responding to every stirrer-upper who wanders around these parts, but sometimes one just can’t resist shooting the proverbial barrel-fish.
1. Al Asad consists of two distinct areas, an airfield and a base, which are separated by armed guards. The base portion (where I live) was designated as a FOB sometime in 2005 or 2006, and has massively expanded since that time. Not hard to find this info on the web (globalsecurity.org, mhrinet, the official stripes.com website, among many others), but you won’t find it on wikipedia.
2. I don’t let them play Halo. They let me play. (I’m not very good.)
3. Calculating renal function is very simple, requires only height, weight, and a simple blood test. The relationship between volume depletion, protein (and/or weight loss) supplements, and renal failure is very well-documented (i.e., Mil Med. 2007 Jun;172[6] :656-8, among many others). However, if you’d like to render a medical opinion as to the cause of this patient’s renal insufficiency, I’d love to hear it.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Snap.
Nicely executed Maj.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Mr. Halliburton,
Getting in a pissing match with Dr. Rupard is an exercise in futility for a number of reasons:
1. He’s smarter than anyone I have ever met.
2. He won’t engage, he’s too kind
3. He knows from whence he speaks and never question this, as he is rarely wrong, but if he were, he would graciously thank you for the info, and then proceed to use it in any
useful way.
4. He has about a thousand people who love him.That would include everyone who has ever met him.It is much smarter to be kind and make friends than pick out useless bits of information that really have no bearing on the fact that he is in a war doing his level best to serve his country. No complaints, just glass half full all the time. go away unless you intend to be nice, then you may stay. I know you must have other people that would be less time-consuming to pick at than a Dr. serving his country, so you can sit in your home and troll the internet looking for enemies.
5. Most importantly, your words will have no affect on him. He has a tender heart towards everyone, including malcontents such as yourself. I of course am speaking on behalf of me, not Erik, and he would have told me, had he been here, to leave you alone and maybe you would just go away. Instead of looking for reasons to find fault, find a soldier and send him or her a nice care package of things you would miss if you were in Iraq.
6. Oh, yes, if all else fails, it never hurts to follow The Golden Rule, which we all learned in kindergarten.
Yours, Melissa, Erik’s over-protective big sister.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Erik,
Thank you for writing your blog (and serving out country and others, of course). I have to admit, I’m hopelessly addicted to reading of your adventures. My wacky twin, Lisa Spice highly recommended you and now, I take way to much time during my work day reading and lurking.
So, thank you.
May 19th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Erik,
Just a quick note, you forgot to wish Barry a happy birthday (as did I) He’s a good egg and won’t mind, but it’s worth noting and reminding him he is again 2 years older than me! woo hoo!
Mit
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BARRY!!!!
May 19th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Hi Lori. I’ve known about you for-like-ever. Nice to know that Lisa wasn’t making up a twin afterall
I actually wanted to say that you have about the coolest sister in the world. Lisa is one in a million, but I’m sure you already know that.
I grew up w. Adam (his dad was my bishop for about 90 years or so)and Lisa met Erik in the BYU ENG Dept. even before I met him. I’m sure you’ve heard about those lost weekends in Provo. They kept it real is all I’m gonna say.
Welcome to the blog and no point in lurking; jump right in.
By the way I like your name.
except Lorri has another R
Lisa-If you’re reading this, Erik just randomly FED-EXd me a full 4 seasons worth of Roseanne. Score! I told him I’m going to wait to open it until he gets here.
TTFN.