Last week at work, a Japanese fishing boat not far from Midway

Island called the Coast Guard and reported a crewman had shingles. According to webmd “When the virus that causes chickenpox reactivates, it causes shingles”. The crewman had these on his face and around his eyes and the surgeon we called recommended that we get him to a hospital before it affected his vision, so we had the boat go to midway island and had a Coast Guard plane pick him up and bring him to a hospital here. This did not happen quickly, boat was four days from Midway and we can only land on Midway at certain times because birds dominate the runways. It’s a lot of work. Many people are involved in this mission and my job was basically establishing a time and course for the ship to arrive at Midway, recommend best time for plane to be at Midway, communicate with customs and hospital and most importantly, communicate with ship. I need to get constant updates on patient and pass that on to the surgeon and see how urgent the needs of the patient are and the distance to the closest point of medical help. It’s an exciting job and never are any situations the same.