HABU HAVEN!

Finally, I got to see a Habu snake! They are similar to our rattlesnakes, but without the rattle. Supposedly they are all over the island, but it took me over 7 months to finally see one. While returning from the Corpsmen Cove, where my friend Rob, Matt, and I reminisced about growing up in the 80's, video games and also about working in the private world, we almost stepped on a Habu hanging out on the sidewalk hissing at us! I guess he figured there were three of us and only one of him, so he slithered off into the tall grass (where we had walked down to the Cove from our barracks only an hour before!). Only 6 weeks left to see a banana spider and witness a typhoon to truly experience Okinawa!

The nights in the ER can get a little slow towards the end of a shift, as you can see by us all hanging out in the staff lounge, eating and joking around. Later that night, while watching a guy check his drunk friend in to the ER on our closed circuit camera in the waiting room, we observed his friend proceed to pass out on the tile floor of our waiting room while a few other patients were sitting patiently nearby. Then, the friend checking him in turned around, and began taking camera phone pictures of his drunk buddy on the floor of our waiting room. It was better than America's Funniest Videos! Sometimes I have to just pinch myself to remind me just how fun working in the ER can be, and that we actually get paid to do it!

We already miss Dr. Tanen and Dr. Carstairs, two toxicologists from USNH San Diego at Balboa who spent a month out here helping us out while waiting for our new docs to arrive. CAPT Tanen is pictured with some of the Japanese Interns and I outside of our ambulance entrance to the ER. I look forward to working with both of them again in San Diego during my two weeks of AT with the Reserves next summer!

Some of our new docs have arrived, so we went out to my favorite curry restaurant (FAB CURRY) on the Sunabe Seawall for a dinner to get to know everyone. A few of the Japanese Interns joined us as well. We finished the night off by going to one of the Karaoke bars in Okinawa to sing the night away!

Only a little over 5 weeks before I leave back to San Diego for my demobilization and return to Phoenix. Time is definitely flying!

LCDR Butler