#20- the Final Count down!

#20- The final count down

As a kid I'd count down to something I'm looking forward to in sleeps.  Did you do that? 5 sleeps to Christmas, 2 sleeps till school holidays!!  Well old habits die hard, and my wife and I have been counting down the sleeps for when I come home.  For me that journey starts tomorrow as I board a Mosquito  sized plane and commence my travels south.
I am so looking forward to coming home, but leaving here is bitter sweet. I've fallen in love with nursing again. And whilst I am less than half the man here than I am when I am with my bride and kids, I really think I will miss this place.

   Last night at 2 am the distressed girl friend of a drunken assault victim awoke my slumber.  Her man had been knocked cold and was bleeding from a large laceration.  To be able to tend to him at a time when he had been beaten and humiliated in front of his Kin, was not an inconvenience (as it may have been in my jaded past) but this was an opportunity, to love fellow man. I stitched him the best I could, I tended his wounds and I eased his pain, and though I didn't finish with him til 6am despite a start shift time of 8, the experience was a privilege. 

This afternoon, two of the school teachers marched the year 2/3 class up to the clinic. They were armed with a selection of thank you drawings and letters, and in the middle if a talk I was giving staff on the management of the unconscious patient, 12  six to eight year olds tackled me with affection.   I was so touched to be honoured by them. 

Wow.  Made my day.
Tonight I'm making lobster with lime and Chilli, and a sweet potato/yam curry to share at our regular nurses/teachers dinner. I have loved my time here bit in 2 more sleeps, I'm with my people, and it will be a homecoming that I am so so looking forward to!