I'll be home for Christmas

This story was originally titled "I'll be Home for Christmas" in the December 2008 issue. Subscribe to Canadian Living today and never miss an issue!

I was standing with eight women in a steel military sea container that had been converted into a common shower. As the water poured over me, I tried not to let the others see the milk leaking from my engorged breasts or the tears streaming down my face. I could deal with the physical pain, but my wildly fluctuating emotions were another story. I was anxious about the possibility of being sent to Afghanistan as a member of the Canadian Forces and leaving my two small children behind. It was all I could do to suppress the urge to scream, "What was I thinking?!"

I am a family physician with the Forces and I was on a five-week-long training session in Wainwright, Alta., to prepare for work in Afghanistan. My husband, Randy (who is also a doctor with the Forces), and I were proud to serve our country, and we were both working at the base outside of Fredericton. It was September 2006.  A group of soldiers from Canadian Forces Base Valcartier in Quebec would be going on short notice to Afghanistan in late November and early December. They needed a physician, and my name was selected. The next step was to prepare physically and mentally for the training in Wainwright, which would focus on simulating the war in Afghanistan.

Training in Wainwright, Alta.
When I was called to Wainwright, I had no plans to wean my 14-month-old daughter, Olivia, and had never even spent one night away from my children. My son, Zachary, was three and a half years old. I was dreading the thought of leaving them both. On the morning that my flight left, I tiptoed into Olivia’s room. It was 5:30 a.m. and she was not awake yet. I gazed down at her sweet face, my heart heavy, knowing that I would not see my baby for five weeks. And though the training turned out to be just four weeks, it felt like an eternity.

As the only physician in the camp out west, I was on call around the clock. Whether patients had the flu or had been the victim of a simulated roadside bomb attack, I had to see them all. One night after I fell asleep, exhausted, in my tent, there was a simulated bomb attack on the camp hospital. People were shouting, "Bunker! Bunker!" while the "enemy" forces shouted at us: "Allahu akbar!" – "Allah is the greatest!"

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