Naknek paddy wheck, the time has really flown!

I hope none of you were foolish enough to use my blog as a calendar, because if you were you apparently lost all of April. Although this implies that I wasn’t actually here for a month, I was indeed here in Alaska except for an unexpected trip to Idaho mid-April for about 10 days. It was not exactly a vacation; I spent most of the time cleaning out my stuff from my house and dispersing it various places including the chicken coop and other sheds on my property, a rented storage unit, packed in Rubbermaid tubs to send to Naknek, the thrift store and THE DUMP! I didn’t get everything sorted and packed, but knocked some money off the rent for my new renters for finishing up the packing and doing the cleaning. I also (with help both paid and volunteer) ripped out carpet and linoleum and had the wood floors in the kitchen and small bedroom refinished, scrubbed walls and ceiling in the small bedroom, had an electrician fix the porch light, fix the downed power line that ran to the old well, and rewire the chicken coop (actually a very large concrete-floored former commercial laying hen coop) so that it can safely be used as a teepee workshop by my teepee-maker friend. Whew! Also spent a pittance of time visiting my mom and my niece and cleaning up the yard and garden. I brought the two dogs back to Alaska with me (they didn’t get first class, they got baggage compartment seating), which was a real educational experience when I had to spend the night in the airport in Anchorage with them. I learned that I never never want to fly with two dogs again, especially if one of them is my golden retriever Sam, who chewed through the other dog’s leash while I “slept” on the bench they were tied to. My bag that had their dog food in it got checked all the way through so I fed them frozen yogurt for dinner and a turkey and Swiss sandwich for breakfast. We all survived. April in Alaska was spent planting a group garden in a friend’s enormous greenhouse, being on call, seeing patients, and taking an excellent refresher in Advanced Cardiac Life Saving, which I may actually get to use out here. It’s what you see on TV when someone calls “code blue”. Sort of. Hopefully not nearly as dramatic as on Grey’s Anatomy, but more effective. I also got to taste whale meat for the first time. The other health care provider, Katie, is married to Sonny who is native and so has the right to hunt whale. He got this one with a harpoon and bow and arrow. All of us (and more) who were in the ACLS class had dinner at Katie and Sonny’s house and whale was the main entre. It was very good! Although it smelled a little bit like fish, it didn’t taste like it. It really tasted kind of like elk, and had a very dense, fine-grained texture. I asked Sonny what was the best way to eat blubber and he said, “At your house!” I still want to taste it, but might have to wait until next year. These pictures are of the gathering at Katie’s house.

There is a smallish lake out in the tundra at the end of the road where I’m living now that the dogs and I walk to at least once or twice a day. I heard an unfamiliar bird call out there, and found out that it was Sandhill Cranes. I didn’t get to see them since I forgot to bring my binoculars with me, but you could sure hear them. The Red Salmon cannery which is across the highway from me pipes water from the lake into the cannery when it’s operating. There is a sketchy boardwalk that we walk out on along the pipe where it goes across all the shallows to the open water. You can see a big beaver lodge out on one of the little islands, and the gulls are nesting out there too.

The sun is up now by about 5:30 (and I know this because I had to go down to the clinic on Thursday at 4:30 AM to meet a fisherman off a tender who had fallen and broken ribs) and doesn’t set until after 10 PM. This is a picture taken at about 10:30 PM last week.

I just ordered mosquito/noseeum mesh head net and jacket, and a supply of repellent. The black flies are already showing up (they call them white socks out here), and there is a goodly supply of mosquitoes down at the lake already. I think I will learn to love the wind this summer! Herring fishing has begun, although the allowable catch is pretty small, so there isn’t really a big influx yet, but the town has definitely got a hum and a buzz and a hustle that it didn’t have a month ago. The canneries are gearing up and bringing in people, the barges are coming in from Seattle and Anchorage, and the fishermen are getting their boats ready for salmon season. Yesterday (a Saturday) I had a call from dispatch at the very polite hour of 8 AM after a full night’s sleep to take care of a fisherman with a dislocated shoulder. About half an hour after he came in, I got a guy with a lacerated and crushed finger. I was unable to put the shoulder back in place—the kid weighed 265 pounds and was mostly sheer muscle, so even after injections of morphine and fentanyl, oral doses of Valium and hydrocodone, his muscle spasms and my inability to provide enough traction prevented me from getting it back in. He wasn’t even very loopy even after all that. So we arranged for a commercial flight to Anchorage for him. The kid with the crushed finger opted to go out to Anchorage for treatment too. He could probably see the eager gleam in my eye when I discussed the possibility of amputating the end of his pinky finger. I explained that he really would never even miss that tip and I could just suture the skin over the stump and get him back to work pretty quickly, but he decided he was pretty attached to that piece of flesh. So he went out to Anchorage too. Then about the time I got those two almost taken care of I had a woman with severe abdominal pain come in, and we had to Medi-vac her out to Anchorage post haste. Meanwhile I missed both the piano recital (all 6 kids) and the “Color Me Bristol Bay” fun run. So fishing season begins! I went off call at 0900 this morning and it sure felt good to not be dreading that ringtone all day. I finally got to meet my new landlord and look at the place I’m going to rent and sign a lease today. It turns out that it was not the house I thought it was, but is actually the house across the street from the one I thought it was. I thought he said “last house on the road”, but he actually said “last house on the right.” Which is great because it’s a much nicer house! It’s on 2 acres, has a smoke house for fish, a wonderful sauna (we call them sweat houses out here) 3 bedrooms and a big loft, and 2 bathrooms, storage sheds. It even comes with two nice dog houses! So I’ll get to start moving in tomorrow. I’m pretty excited about it. I’ll include some pictures next time. Meanwhile I will leave you, as promised last time, with a few entries from the Unalaska Police Report: Assistance Rendered—A severely intoxicated patient refused treatment at the clinic and departed the area with a catheter still in place. Officers contacted the man walking along the roadway and advised him it would be prudent to remove the catheter. He did. Assistance Rendered—Caller reported her neighbor was dumping cat litter in the caller’s yard. Officers contacted the neighbor, who does not own a cat and has no need of cat litter, and learned that a number other people in the nearby area have cats. MVA Damage—Officer documented damage to a motor vehicle, caused by an unidentified vehicle, at an unidentified time, in an unidentified place. (I am not making this up!) Drunk Disturbance—Officers responded to a boarding house regarding threats of violence. An intoxicated tenant, upset over the volume of music played by an apparently sober tenant, called the sober tenant bad names and implied that nobody liked him. Domestic Disturbance—Officers responded to the home of two drunken brothers who were unable to play well with another and required police tell them to just get along. Why didn’t I think of calling the police when my boys were fighting??? Stay tuned for more of the rolling tundra review, published at random intervals.