Jackson
All I want to do is sleep. I left Boston four days ago and since then have landed in three countries and switched planes in each one. I am so screwed up from jet lag and the time change that I just want to lie down and sleep for a solid 24 hours. It doesn't look like that's going to happen though. The doctor who met us when we got off the helicopter, April, insists on showing us around. I am dead on my feet, but she seems like she has been here awhile, so I try to listen to all the information she is throwing at us. We walk at least a mile back to the area she calls "base camp," which only consists of a tent for the doctors to sleep in and a patient tent. There is another camp a few miles away, she explains, that we sometimes trade supplies with, and the closest village is ten minutes by Humvee. We take a quick tour of what she refers to as the community restrooms, and that's it. My home away from home.
April takes us in the patient tent first because that is where we will be spending the majority of our time. There must be at least fifty cots, all occupied, with injured civilians and soldiers. I am surprised to see this many patients. On our busiest day in the ER back home we didn't see anywhere near this number of people.
"Is there always this many of them?" I ask.
"Sometimes there's more," April shrugs, "but our primary concerning is helping the sick and injured, so we make it work."
"Isn't that a safety concern?" I'm not trying to push the issue, but I have to ask.
"You're in the middle of the desert in a tent. Everything is a safety concern," she replies, and it's only then that I realize she is right.
April leads us through the rows of beds to show us where the medical supplies are stored, and as we walk, she pauses to speak with almost every patient in our path. She knows each of them by name and introduces us as the new doctors. They all look at her with complete adoration.
"Someone's popular," I joke when we finally stop at the stacked containers of the limited supplies we have to work with.
She looks back at me and smiles, "They would be happy to see any of the doctors," she replies, but I don't think that is true.
Once she gives us an overview of the supply area, she tells us that we are on a rotating schedule here, and that we will be working the night shift with her starting tonight. My days and nights are so mixed up that it really doesn't matter to me what shift I am working either way.
"I try to sleep as much as I can during the day. It was hard to drown out the noise and light at first, but now I am used to it. Do you guys think you could sleep now?" she asks.
We all agree that sleeping is no problem, so she leads us to the doctors' tent to show us the area that will become our new home. There are a few empty cots scattered throughout, and she tells us to grab one and store our belongings underneath. I head over to the first bed I see not occupied and drop my bags to the ground, trying to shove them underneath. They are packed so full that not all of them will fit, so I drop the extra bag on the end of my cot and hope I can find a place for it later.
"You can store that under my cot," a voice says next to me, and I look up to see April standing next to the cot to my right.
"You sure?" I ask.
"Yeah, I have plenty of room," she says, picking up my bag and pushing it under her cot before I have time to reconsider. "And you will probably want these," she hands me a pillow and a green blanket that feels like sandpaper, but it's better than nothing.
"Thanks," I tell her, taking them out of her hands and unfolding the blanket.
"You get used to the blanket," she explains, "Most of the time you will probably be too tired to care anyway."
"That's kinda how I'm feeling right now," I say rubbing my eyes with my palms.
"Well, get some sleep. I'll wake you when our shift starts," she squeezes my shoulder and lays down on her on cot facing away from me. I do the same, and try to get comfortable on my tiny cot. I can tell by the way her breathing slows that she is asleep within minutes of laying down. Staring at the back of her head, with her deep red hair swept back in a bun, I can't help but think she is not who I expected to find here. I pictured most of the doctors as large, strong men – military types. But instead, tiny April walked up to my helicopter. She seems soft and strong at the same time which is probably why the patients like her so much. She has a kindness about her that they need. Maybe I am underestimating her, though. She might just be perfect for this place.
It feels like I just shut my eyes when a hand is on my arm, shaking me awake.
"Jackson! You need to wake up!"
There is an urgency in their voice, but I don't immediately react. I haven't slept off the jet lag yet, and the last thing I want to do is lift my head from this pillow. I pull the blanket closer to my chin and hope they go away.
"Jackson! I need your help!" I recognize the voice this time as April's, and I force myself to open my eyes just enough to see what she needs.
"With what?" I ask, sounding more annoyed than I mean to, but damn I am tired.
"You have to get up. There's a sandstorm. We have to secure the tents."
"A what? What's a sand storm?" I swing my feet to the side of my cot and sit up, fully awake now. I quickly slide my feet into my boots and lace them up, looking up at her for an answer.
"You'll find out soon enough," she says while tying a surgical mask around her face.
She hands me a mask, and I put it on, realizing that all the other doctors around us are already wearing one.
"Grab your hat and follow me," April tells me and I do as she says, walking quickly to catch up with her.
We reach the exit of the tent, and she pauses and looks over at me before stepping outside. "It's going to be hard to see so stay close to me."
She pulls her hat and on, so I do the same, and then she pushes through the slit in the tent, and I follow close behind her.
I gasp, when we step into a swirling wall of sand. I can't see five feet in front of my face and just when I think my eyes have adjusted well enough, the wind kicks more sand up into my face, and I am disoriented again. We have only taken a few steps when I stop to look behind us to figure out where I am. I see nothing. Our tent has disappeared into the sea of tan that is all around us, and I am uneasy not knowing which way to go.
"Don't stop!" April calls back to me, and she reaches back to take my hand in hers and pull me behind her. I have no idea how she knows where she is going, but her confidence reassures me, so I trust her. I have no choice in the matter anyway.
After what seems like an eternity, April's pace slows and I can begin to make out the patient tent in front of us. I don't know how she did it, but she led us right to the entrance. She slides her arm through the opening in the tent and we step inside. April shakes the sand off her hat dropping it on to a table near the entrance, and pulls off her face mask. I do the same while she turns to a doctor standing close by and asks, "Do we have enough cement blocks for the whole tent?"
"No," he responds, clearly frustrated. "We took most of them to the other camp last week. We'll have to come up with something else."
April scans the room, and I can almost see her mind working overtime to fix whatever problem the missing cement blocks has created.
"April?"
She either doesn't hear me or doesn't want to because she doesn't answer me.
"April?" I say louder.
She breaks her focus to look over at me, "Sorry. What?"
"Can you fill me in here? What do we need cement blocks for?"
"We use them to hold down the bottom of the tent. We have to keep as much of the sand out as possible. It's not a perfect solution, but it has worked well in the past. For our patients that have respiratory issues or open wounds, the storm could be deadly, so we have to do our best to keep them protected until it passes. Usually we place the blocks all around the bottom edges, but that's not an option this time."
"So, what are we going to do?"
"Give me a minute. I'll come up with something," she tells me. Her eyes narrow and her face twists up in concentration. I can tell she is chewing on the inside of her cheek, deep in thought, and then her eyes brighten and her face breaks into a smile.
"Come help me," she says, and again, I follow her knowing that wherever she is headed is the best place to be.
We walk to the opposite end of the tent where extra cots are stacked almost as tall as me, and April starts unstacking them.
"Here," she says, handing a cot to me. "We're going to put these along the edge of the tent to help hold it down since we don't have the blocks. We have to keep the sand and wind away from these patients, so this will have to work for now."
I grab some cots and start laying them along the bottom of the tent working the opposite direction as April. I'm impressed by her resourcefulness. The other doctors, who were all standing around hoping for a solution, seem to feel the same way. She transforms into a tiny drill sergeant giving them all instructions to secure the tent, and none of them hesitate to listen to her. We make it ¾ of the way around the tent before we run out of cots. We have an entire wall of the tent that is not protected from the storm. I see April realizes we are out of cots the same time I do, and I look to her, waiting for another answer that only she seems to have. She meets my eyes and begins walking toward me, yelling for Hunt and Yang as well. The four of us stand in a makeshift circle knowing that one of us has to come up with a solution.
"Can we get extra cots from our tent?" I ask, hoping to be of some help.
Hunt shakes his head at my suggestion, "The storm has picked up. If you thought it was hard to see walking over here – there's no way you'd be able to find your way back."
"Do we have anything else that weighs enough to hold against those winds?" Yang asks.
The four of us survey our surroundings looking for anything that could work.
"We could hold down the tent," April says confidently, "The doctors who aren't helping patients could sit along the bottom of the tent and use their body weight to hold it down. And we'll switch out when we get tired because it could be hours before this storm moves through. What do you guys think? Could it work?"
April looks to Hunt, knowing that they are the ones who have been through this before, and he smiles proudly at her. "It could definitely work. I'll grab Nathan and Megan and get them to help. The six of us should be enough for now. If any of you need a break, just let me know, and we can switch you out, but for now, find a spot along the tent wall and get comfortable."
I don't know why, maybe because I trust her instincts, but I follow April to a spot against the tent and pull the it tight against the ground before sitting down on it next to her. She leans forward to check that the tent is secure all the way down the wall, and then leans back with a sigh when she sees that it is.
"You said this could last hours?" I ask, part of me not wanting to hear her answer. The thought of sitting on the ground, holding this tent down for hours, sounds torturous.
"Unfortunately. One storm lasted two days, but most don't last that long," she must see the look on my face because she adds, "You get used to them. After a while, the sand storms just seem like another part of the job here."
"You said you've been here six months?" I ask, already knowing the answer. When she nods, I continue, "So what did you do before you decided to risk your life in the Army?"
She half-smiles at my question. "I was Chief of Trauma at Cincinnati Medical in Ohio. Before this, my whole career had been at that hospital. I started there as an intern and just never left. What about you? I'm sure some hospital was sad to see you go."
I think back to the day I left. I sat in the airport alone, waiting for my flight number to be called. No one was waving good-bye to me or wishing me well when I walked to the plane. I don't think anyone was sad to see me go. "I don't know about that, but I worked at Mass Gen in Boston. Plastics."
Her surprise at my specialty is obvious, and her eyes are wide with excitement. "Plastics? Really? We have never had a plastics specialist here. Jackson, do you realize how valuable you are?" I feel a pull in my stomach. I can't remember anyone ever calling me valuable, especially not for my work. I've spent years trying to be seen for who I am and not just my name, and this girl does that in one day. In this moment, I know I made the right decision getting on that plane.
I realize I haven't responded, and she is looking at me, waiting. "I don't know about that," I say with a shrug, "I just hope I can help over here somehow, you know?"
April gets a far off look in her eyes, and just as I am about to ask her where her mind is, she speaks, "Yeah. I know. That's all I want to, is to help someone."
There is sadness in her answer, but I decide not to pry. "Well, you seem to be doing plenty of that," I say, trying to lighten the mood. "You're basically running this place. Even I can see that."
She smiles and a hint of pink flushes across her cheeks in response to my compliment. "Well, Dr. Hunt is the one in charge. He taught me everything I know. I'm nowhere near as trained as he is."
"That may be true, but you're a natural at this. I saw that the second I got off the helicopter. You're calm and confident, which makes the other doctors feel at ease. But then you also radiate kindness. You say that the patients would have been happy to see any doctor earlier, but I know that's not true. You brought them joy just by being in the room. Do you know how rare that is for a doctor? Most doctors are all science and terminology and terrible bedside manner, but I can tell you aren't like that. I bet Ohio misses you." I lean into her slightly and bump my shoulder against hers playfully.
"Oh, I think Ohio is surviving just fine without me," she says quietly, and I lose her to her own thoughts again briefly, and then just as quickly as it left, the light returns to her eyes. "But I think doctors should be caring, don't you? I mean, I would feel better as a patient if I thought my doctor cared about me. So, I do my best to make every patient as comfortable as I can in a tough situation. I sit with them and listen to their stories, I tell them about myself if they ask, I pray with them-"
"Wait, you pray with them?" I interrupt.
"I do. You probably think that's strange, huh?" she scrunches up her nose expecting me to agree that a praying doctor is, in fact, strange.
"I guess I just don't see the point. I mean, we spend years studying medicine and learning how it heals people. So, what is the point of asking some God that may or may not be there for help? Either the medicine will work or it won't." I am not trying to offend her, but I feel pretty strongly about this.
"You don't believe in God?" she asks.
I sigh and lean my head back against the tent. "I just don't think there is one all-knowing God who sits up in the sky and judges us all. Maybe I'm wrong, but if he was really there, wouldn't we have proof? Isn't that what we are taught in med school? Everything can be proven with tests, data, and measurements. What proof do we have that a God exists?"
I expect her to start lecturing me on why I am wrong, but instead she says only, "You're right."
"I am?" I ask.
She laughs quietly. "Of course, you are. There is no proof, and it makes sense that you would question that. Most people do. I used to think I had it all figured out. I had perfectly balanced faith and science in my mind, and I thought I had an answer for every situation. When a patient woke up after being in a coma for five years, completely healed with no medical explanation, I attributed it to faith. When a cancer patient got a new scan and it showed their tumors were gone – just disappeared, I could only explain that with faith. Or watching the woman who was told she would never have children hold her baby for the first time. I didn't question any of those things because I thought I had the answer. Other doctors would ask, "Where did our tests and data and measurements go wrong? Science is what we rely on to know we can heal people," but I was positive a higher power had intervened. I just never prepared myself for situations where science and faith both fail."
I've never heard a Christian argue that science and faith are equally important, and that perspective makes me want to know her better. "When have they both failed? What does that mean?"
She nods in the direction of one the patients lying on a cot about ten feet away. I hadn't noticed him when we walked through the first time, but now I see a young boy, with deep burns covering his face and arms. I look back to April, waiting for her to tell me more about how he ended up here.
"He was walking home from school and got caught in an IED blast. Wrong place, wrong time. There is no other explanation. He didn't get a disease that we can treat with medicine or science. He was completely innocent. There is no faith justification for why something like that would happen to a small child. There is no explanation. It seems so random. We spend our whole lives trying to be good people and make good choices, and then BAM we're hit with something terrible anyway. Where is the faith or science in that?" The single tear running down her cheek tells me this boy's injuries are not the first time she has questioned her knowledge and beliefs. There is something much deeper there.
"Well, I get that science can't explain why he got the injuries, but it can help fix them. I've treated hundreds of burn victims at Mass Gen. When the storm clears, I'll take a look at him and start as soon as I can. I can probably minimize most of the scarring." I am beginning to see why she was so excited to have a Plastics specialist here. I'm willing to bet he isn't the only burn patient in this tent.
"Jackson, you have no idea how much that will mean to him – to all of us," she reaches out and places her hand on mine, squeezing it with gratitude.
"See? Science can fix this."
"In a way, I guess. But who's going to fix the scars inside?" she asks, and somehow, I know she isn't talking about the boy.