Nurses After War by Doherty Mary Ellen PhD RN CNM; Scannell-Desch Elizabeth PhD RN OCNS;

Author:Doherty, Mary Ellen, PhD, RN, CNM; Scannell-Desch, Elizabeth, PhD, RN, OCNS;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
Published: 2016-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

CAPTAIN AMANDA

Amanda, an air force reservist, reported: “Sometimes I was scared out of my mind on the FOB [forward operating bases].” She told how she tried to distract herself with exercise and by looking forward to meals. She went further to say:

I paid all my bills online and took care of all my finances. I lost 20 pounds on the FOB. I used the exercise bike. I ate veggie curry almost every day for the whole 6 months. I did appreciate food over there because we didn’t have a lot of it. When I got home, I was so happy to be home with coffee. It’s weird on the FOB, you can’t go to the bathroom at night because you’d have to wake up someone else to go with you. It’s a blackout FOB; so, you can’t bring a flashlight, you might have a little red light. I had a gun, and I had my husband send my MACE. It was insane how unsafe I felt on the FOB. You worried about getting raped by a contractor or local nationals. I always thought I was gonna be sexually assaulted. I didn’t drink a beverage after 6 o’clock at night because I didn’t want to have to go to the bathroom. When I got home, I loved to drink liquids at night. It was such a relief, such a glorious thing. If I was desperate, I would pee in a container or on towels and, then throw them away during the day [laughing]. Then, I ran out of towels. I would try to clean them, but sometimes it was a mess [laughing]. At the end of the deployment, the people at the FOB completely changed. Three of us living in a hooch together would stay up late and go to the bathroom together one more time as a group. It was a navy lieutenant, and army captain, and an air force captain; so, we were all 0–3’s. It was awesome; it was our Christmas card; it was awesome living with those ladies. Urinating was a big concern for us over there [laughing]. I would bring a Gatorade bottle full of urine in my shower bag and dump it out in the shower [laughing].

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