Afghanistan

yesterday at about 10 a.m. i walked into my office after seeing a patient and found a sticky note on my computer. It said:

"Em,
see me,
Bri"

"Bri" is actually Colonel Crisp, who is the department chief for OB/GYN. the note made me just a tiny bit nervous, so i hightailed it over to his office. apparently "see me" actually means "you are going to afghanistan".
apparently about an hour before the note was placed on my computer he got a memo from the 'higher ups' somewhere requesting the name of an OB/GYN physician who would be deploying to afghanistan in April (as in 2 months away) for 15 months. There are 12 docs in my department, 5 are military, 2 have already deployed, 1 is deploying this summer, so that leaves 2 of us to potentially fill the slot. Me, and the other girl who just graduated from residency.
So, the solution is that she and I will split the deployment.
Technically the deployment is from 4/12/2010 - 7/12/2011. Only 12 months of that will be in Afghanistan, the other 3 months are a little unclear....it will likely be spent somewhere here in the states, "debriefing" with the unit or something like that.
So, she will go 4/12-10/30, and i will go 10/16-4/12. not sure what 4/12-7/12 will involve.

The other bad news is that the deployment is as a GMO (General Medical Officer) which basically means i will have a little tiny primary care clinic that sees "sick call". I was really hoping to deploy in a surgery spot so that i could at least be in the midst of the major medical action while i was there, but unfortunately i will be seeing ingrown toenails and seasonal allergies.

i knew deployment was in my future, but now that i have an actual date it is feeling a little surreal.