The Floating Hospital

Well this has been a long week I will not lie. We figured this week Deven put in close to 100 hours. He got lucky and got the weekend call so we didn't get to see him this whole weekend. He finally got home Sunday about noon, but now he is sleeping soundly poor guy he is tired and gets to start all over tomorrow Thanks goodness he switches rotations this Thursday. I will not miss this one. He had one afternoon off this week and he had heard at the hospital that The Mercy Ship was at Pearl Harbor apparently it only docks here about once every 2 years The doctors told him he should go check it out. It was amazing. It is literally a hospital on the water. Right now it was returning from a humanitarian mission, but in war times it acts as a rescue ship on the water. It is capable of staffing up to 900 people. We got a tour and and it was amazing. The Mercy Ship

This is up in the captains bridge. The guy was so awesome and he showed us all of the new GPS technology they have on board. They were in the process of mapping their route home to San Diego. They were leaving the next morning.

He let Gracie and Deven touch the captains wheel. Gracie was a little nervous she didn't want us to really go out to see. We tried to assure her it would take a lot of effort to get that ship out of the harbor.

This is on top of the flight deck. The sheds is where they store their two choppers when they are not on a mission. They said the wings fold up and they fit inside. On their last mission one of their helicopters got 4 bullet holes in it. I think is is so sad people attacked a ship that was coming to help them. They said it was a little scary as they have very little fighting power on this ship. They take with them a small security force.

This is the CAT Scan machine on the boat. Deven was amazed at all the radiology technology. They usually have 2 radiologist on board. This boat had 12 Operating rooms, and ICU, a huge pre op room. A full Dental and eye clinic. It was amazing.

Deven Gracie and I walking up the dock to get on the Mercy Ship

This is a picture of just how big this ship is. We had just parked our car and couldn't believe how big this ship was. It towered over all the other ships in the harbor. They usually go out for 4 month missions at a time. Deven thought one day he would like to have the opportunity to do this. This time they visited Guam, Vietnam, and a whole bunch of other tiny islands between Hawaii and Australia. I can't remember all the names. Anyways they told us of all the people they helped. In each island they will do surgery on up to 50 people a day. I just forget sometimes how lucky we are to have good medical care and access to it.