Packing Day

This afternoon we started packing medications and supplies for the mission trip to Cambodia! We're down to just over 2 weeks until it's time to go and getting everything organized today helped make the upcoming trip more real to me. 

Dr. Cheryl Melick hosted a Christmas party at her house last night. A few of the younger guests stayed over so this morning she had them get all of the boxes out into an area those of us going on the mission could work. Dr. Melick, her daughter Rachel who is in nursing school back east, Meghan a nurse I work with in the ER at Swedish and Anna a Physician's Assistant were on hand to get everything sorted out and packaged as quickly as possible. My wife, Christine, also spent her afternoon with us to help check off items on the packing list. Some of her drug name pronunciations were hilarious adorable. She really likes to put a Spanish flair (or maybe Canadian accent?) on any of the medications that ended with "e."

Ketoconazol - ay!

Here are the boxes when we arrived at 2pm to get to work

The first task on our agenda was to write on all of the caps of medications what they were, how many bottles total of that type there were, and get everything somewhat organized and out of the way until ready for packing. Writing on the caps will help us identify meds quickly when they're spread out on the floor in hotel rooms or at clinics and the quantities of bottles will help me monitor supplies.

Once the meds were lined up we started dividing items that were in bulky boxes into easier to pack baggies.

Dustin and Anna focus on diabetics supplies

Baggies, baggies everywhere and not a drop to drink

The wall-o-drugs by the front door

Super Waifu spending her day helping us out!

The Sea of Supplies just before getting into suitcases!
Christine was right...totally should have had someone lying in the middle of all this for a photo

After everything was organized we broke up into teams of 2 and started packing suitcases. We created a record of everything that went into each suit case and weighed them periodically to see how close to 50 pounds we were getting while packing. If we started getting close to the maximum weight for a bag and still had a lot of room it was time to switch to lightweight bulky items such as gauze. 

By 6:30 pm everything was packed into 12 suitcases (which I totally didn't photograph). Ten of them were at max weight, ~50 pounds, and two have a little room left in them for toiletries, snacks during the trip, and other miscellaneous items. 

A huge thanks to everyone who donated to help me on this trip. I know I have a lot of people whom will be thinking of me while I'm gone and I promise to stay safe. 

Cheers,

Dustin