Continuing Medical Treatment

The Landstuhl Orthopedic Department decided to go with Option #1 (read last post) and sent me to the United States for surgery.  On 17 July I was on a plane from Ramstein to Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  I've been at WRAMC now for a week.

The "campus", as it's referred to here, is a very nice facility.  It actually feels like a college campus here...a college campus of medical treatment.  The building structures are very colonial and antiqued on the outside, except for the state-of-the-art gymnasium and the main hospital.  The streets are narrow with slow moving traffic and the sidewalks are continuously congested with wounded warriors that are trying to run their daily lives on their own.  There are always activities on the installation for the wounded warriors and their family members.

The wife and I are staying in a mini-hotel room while I'm currently inprocessing and attending medical appointments.  It's a small room with a shared bathroom, but has all of the amenities of a normal hotel.  It's a nice place to come back to after appointments, formations or meetings to get some sleep - attempting to get back on a normal sleep schedule.  

There is one organizational aspect to the process for Wounded Warriors that I do not like very much even though I know that it is probably necessary to have in order to keep tabs on soldiers.  This aspect that I do not like is the attempt to keep military processes and unit structure within the ranks of the Wounded Warriors.  I am here for medical treatment - to get my body fixed so be on my way to continue my job.  So far, since I have arrived to this installation, I have attended one appointment where I consulted with a doctor.  The rest of my time has been attending unit formations at 0800 and inprocessing the "company" as if I were a permanent party, cadre soldier.  I really just want the medical treatment, the recovery, the physical therapy, and then be kicked out of here to do my job.  I almost have the impression that they are settling me in here for the long hall...I don't want that.  However, I can see how they need the military structure in this medical environment.  There are a LOT of wounded warriors here receiving medical treatment and the cadre need to be able to keep tabs on them, maintain discipline and make the soldiers feel like they are still a part of something.

My next medical consultation is tomorrow (Friday) with the Sports Orthopedics Department.  I'm sure I will have to conduct all of the same painful movement and resistance exercises so he can say he saw the same thing that the past 5 doctors have seen since I left my unit.  Tomorrow; however, should be the day that I find out about surgery on both my arm and shoulder (labrum tear in my shoulder discovered in the MRI from Landstuhl).  The wife and I are keeping our fingers crossed.  She and I have mentioned the word definites a lot in the past week.  We haven't heard any definites from anyone over here as of yet.  We thought we had heard definites in Landstuhl and Baghdad; however, each medical facility has their own opinion.  Landstuhl sent me here for surgery, but Walter Reed may say there is no need for surgery.  There is one thing I can say about the medical care in the Army...the continuity and trust between physicians just plain stinks.  

So, until tomorrow the wife and I will be biting our time finding things to do in the mean time while our son sits in Ohio waiting for his parents to come home.  I still have yet to see the little guy since I've arrived back in the United States.  I'm back in the States but still feel pseudo-deployed...maybe that's why I'm still receiving my combat incentives!

Transitioning

I have gone through many different transitions from the 28th of June to present. Transitions between locations, transitions between way of life, and transitions between environments (both weather and work environments). My first transition was my travel from JSS Loyalty to the 10th CSH at the International Zone on the 28th of June. I had flown by UH-60 from one location to the other in about 5 minutes in the middle of the night. It was then that my life changed drastically.

At JSS Loyalty I was conducted mounted combat patrol operations through some of the worst parts of Baghdad, Iraq and advising Iraqi National Police on a daily basis. I had gone from that fast-paced way of life to then living at a hospital within the International Zone. Normally life at the hospital is a short-lived experience because you get diagnosed and are then on your way either back to your duty location or off to somewhere else for more treatment. Unfortunately for me, when I arrived to the hospital Baghdad had gotten socked in with dust storms for 9 days; preventing me from being able to go anywhere. So, outside of my two doctor appointments, cumulatively accounting for 10 minutes of my stay at the hospital, I was trapped at the hospital without anything to do. My life at the hospital consisted of checking in at the front desk at 0800 and then finding something to do for the rest of the day which either consisted of watching movies in a makeshift movie theater, playing video games, checking my Facebook account on the internet, or calling my wife on the phone. My stress level increased drastically not because of working too hard, but going from working hard to doing absolutely nothing with my day - mindless, boring days. I could hardly stand it! I was finally able to leave the hospital at the International Zone once the weather cleared, but since I needed to go to Germany for an MRI I was on another UH-60 to Balad so I could hop on a fixed-wing aircraft to take us to Germany.

I arrived in Balad on 7 July 2009, once again, in the middle of the night. After arrival and checking I was given Percocet for the pain that I was having in my arm and shoulder. This changed the dynamics of my days greatly as taking this narcotic caused me to become drowsy and incoherent. Although we were only at Balad for one full day before heading to Germany it seemed like eternity at that location. We were not allowed to leave the building we were in except for this little patio on the back of the building if you were a smoker. Needless to say, if I was not sleeping caused by a drug-induced stuper, I was outside smoking under the sunlight and "fresh air". If anything during this deployment has felt like a prison it was this place. That's saying a lot because just being on this deployment feels prison-like. Early in the morning on 9 July 2009 we boarded a C-17 plane headed for Germany.

We arrived in Germany in the late morning on 9 July. We, once again, had to get checked in and attend briefings about all the places that supported us and the routine of events for the Wounded Warriors, which I am now embarrassingly considered. Germany, for all of us, was a big shock to our bodies because when we left Balad it was peaking at 120 degrees during the day; Germany's high thus far has been 65 degrees and rainy. I have been wearing cold weather clothes everyday that I've been here because my body just can't get used to the giant temperature change. At this point in time my mind and body have gotten adjusted to the slow pace of life so I am not nearly as anxious as I was at the hospital in the International Zone. I am living in motel-room style quarters which is a lot more pleasant than the bays of 40 men at the previous locations and my medications were cut in half because of the adverse effects that two percocet every 4 hours was having on my brain. The level of care I'm receiving at Landstuhl is much, much greater than all of the locations previous to this (the previous location's combined consultation, consisting of four different doctors and three different locations, consisted of 10 minutes). Additionally, we are not quite on lockdown at this location. We have formations in the morning and have to sign in at night, but we are allowed passes on the weekends and have opportunities to see the sights of Germany. Yesterday my roommate and I traveled to Frankfurt, Germany to sightsee, shop and eat authentic German food. It was a nice day and we didn't feel like prisoners in our own profession.

The final decision of what will happen with me will be made on Wednesday of this week. There are going to be three options I feel that can be made - 1) Be sent to the United States for surgery and continuing care, 2) Receive surgery here at Landstuhl and THEN get sent home for continuing care or 3) Be told that I don't need surgery and get sent back to theater to finish out my deployment. The hardest of those three is obviously the latter but for different reasons than you might think. It won't be hard to deal with the dust, sand and hot weather...I'm used to that. What will be difficult is readjusting my mind back to the high operational tempo and fast-paced life that comes with combat. I will have been stagnant for three weeks without ever having to worry about work-related tasks. It will be extremely difficult to get back into the mindset needed for combat operations. We will see what happens when that time comes.

Update 12DEC2008

Thought I would send an update to let everyone know how things are going over here. Things here are busy as usual, although today was pretty slow. We didn't go anywhere - just vehicle maintenance. These MRAPs are hard to maintain because there are so many moving parts to them. It's almost as bad as maintenance on a helicopter!
There was a big 5 day holiday here for the Iraqi's this week so not much occurred during the week. There was some violence but there's always violence. For the most part, though, there were a lot of Iraqi's drunk in the streets at night and, during the day, most of them were sleeping their hangovers off. Believe it or not, they party hardy over here!
The big thing I wanted to talk about was how fast this deployment seems to be moving along. We are already 3/4 through this deployment and it seems like I haven't been here that long. I think it's because we have a lot more here - more MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation) assets here like internet in our rooms, movie nights, ping pong, and other stuff to eat up time. The missions are also more frequent this rotation. In Aviation we have to get so much rest before we fly next, on the ground that goes completely out the window. We're always doing something so there isn't as much down time as usual (for me). Guys will start going on leave soon and that will make things go by even more fast! In a bigger unit leave doesn't mean much because there are some many other guys, but on an 11-man team one guy gone is highly noticeable!
I haven't gotten too sick over here. Not like the last time anyway. I have managed to keep my weight on and keep my strength. I had the sniffles a few times but that's only because of the temperature changes we're going through right now. The temps get down pretty low at night here - at least compared to the daytime temps we get. The temp could drop 40 degrees in 45 minutes and then the body goes through a temp shock because it happens too quick. Some of the other guys have gotten stomach viruses and I haven't gotten any of that too bad so I'm very thankful. Some guys even had to get stuck (IV) to get fluids replenished in their system! That was me the last deployment!
One thing that I'm noticing is that my body isn't what it used to be. I'm feeling very much mortal on this deployment. My back reminds me of it daily. I think those 1400 hours of flying helicopters has taken a toll on my back...and I'm not even done flying in my career! This body armor that I wear here is about 35-40 pounds with my weapons attached and all of my ammo. That's definitely taking a toll on my back. All of the aches and pains go away quickly though. Today we had a "day off" to do maintenance and already my back doesn't hurt, but when we go out on missions and come back a few muscle relaxers help a bunch!
I'm still doped up on caffeine and I still smoke - it's too hard to quit those vices when you're constantly busy and require constant alertness. I would rather keep these vices and come home alive rather than the opposite. I'll think about quitting those vices after I get home and settle back into family life. Could be a good plan for the wife and me.
Alright, just wanted to check in and let everyone know that I'm still here and doing fine. Busy, but fine. Hope everything back on the home front is going good.

-Happy Holidays to everyone!

A Day on the FOB

Today we didn't go on a mission or go anywhere outside the FOB...come to think of it we didn't do anything yesterday either. It's really weird the mindset you get in when on a combat deployment. It's much safer on the FOB and less stress, but I would rather go out on a mission any day of the week as opposed to staying on the FOB. It's all about making time go by faster. When you're sitting on the FOB there is really nothing to do so time just snails by and it seems like entire week went by...but it was just one day. I would rather it feel like a day went by, but rather it was an entire week.
Lets see, today I sat around my bunk and did absolutely nothing. I did things, but they were small things to just eat up time. I cleaned my weapons, reorganized my body armor components, cleaned my bunk area, meandered through the FOB PX to better organize my Go Bag, played a little bit of PSP, and then talked with my family as they are in Cleveland for one of Justin's hockey tournaments. Other than talking with my family everything I did was to bite some time off the day to get it over quicker.
I actually like leaving the gate in a Mounted Combat Patrol (MCP) to go somewhere and do something. There is self-worth to it and you feel as though you are doing something over here rather than rotting on a bunk - equivalent to sitting in jail cell bunk waiting for chow time to get out of the cell and go somewhere within the confines to eat and socialize. There is also an undescribable adrenaline rush when you go out of the gate and into the 'combat zone'. You get all suited up like a roman warrior preparing for battle, you load ammo in your weapons for anything that might happen on the mission and your senses are heightened because you're constantly looking for something on the side of the road or on rooftops that may be of danger to you and your crew. I love that feeling. Most people do if they experience it just once in their life. I don't care who you are, it's a feeling that is undescribable yet something that you look forward to.
So, it'll be nice when we go outside the gate next because it'll make time go by faster and get me moving again. I know my family doesn't like to hear that, but I feel as though they understand it in some strange way.
Until tomorrow....

LAKE BELADIYAT

This is Lake Beladiyat. I couldn't describe it through words so I had to take a picture. This is a glimpse of the lake, it still stretches about 800 meters to the left and 200 meters to the right of this picture. There are four MRAP vehicles in this photo as well. You can only see three of the vehicles because one is behind the farthest vehicle...that's the vehicle stuck in the mud and grime. If you look at the picture closely you can see where the road should be as identified by the mounds of dirt on the side of the road. Be aware that all of this water is not really water...it's raw sewage from backed up sewage lines caused by 6 hours of rain.
In the distance, on the right side of the photo, you can see a radio tower. That radio tower is part of the Red Cresent complex (a hospital). That place wasn't always a hospital. When I was here in 2003 it used to be the UN Compound. For those of you who have seen my pictures from my first deployment you would know that this place was hit by a vehicle-born IED - a dump truck of explosives - and had killed the UN Chief. The day of that occurrence I flew around that compound for 6 hours while they tried to secure and clean up the mess. So, based on this, you should know that I am currently working in a place that I flew over for 12 months in my first deployment. It brings back memories.
The unit in this picture is not us. This is another element that was supposed to link up with us at the NP Headquarters but had to turn around because they kept getting stuck. That means that every time they got stuck someone had to get out of the vehicle, step into the sewage and then link their vehicle with another one to get towed out. Doesn't sound fun, does it? Not more than four days ago I had to do the same thing. I didn't fall in like my buddy, but I had to get knee-deep in that crap. It wasn't fun AT ALL!! I lost a pair of boots to that mess!

30 November 2008

The last day of the month before going to the last day of the year! Seems like time is flying by. Believe me, I'm not complaining. I have a pretty good story about our mission today and I would like to share it with you. It's a dirty story so prepare yourselves!

We were leaving the compound that our Iraqi counterparts are stationed at. We received a lot of rain yesterday (read the post before this one) and there is a lot of flooding in the city of Baghdad.

Now, the Iraqis do not know about crowning roads or creating gutter systems in their cities, but that isn't the problem when it comes to flooding in this city. The reason this city floods after a big rain is because their sewer system absolutely sucks and cannot hold all of the rain water that enters the system. Hence, when it rains a lot their sewage backs up and it spills into the streets. You still can't imagine how bad it is. When I "spills into the streets" I'm talking about enough spilling to create lakes of raw sewage - three-foot-deep lakes that stretch for a good 600 - 700 meters wide and 1000 meters long. It consumes houses, cars, donkey carts...everything.

The great thing about the US forces is we like to make our military vehicles big. The MRAPs are the same height of a semi truck. We can basically go through anything - 52,000lbs of armor and machinery. The weight can also be a detriment. When we were leaving the Iraqi Compound we were in this "lake" (we call it Lake Beladiyat when this happens). It's almost a feeling of riding a gondula through the streets of Venice, Italy, but the water is sewage and we're in a truck, not a boat. You can see hints of where the road should be, but you have to guess and then pray that you don't end up in the mud where the 52K# truck will get stuck. We cruised out of the gate, our 4 truck convoy, and were making good progress. There is a part of the road that requires us to cross the median because the side of the road we're on ends into a wall. The median is compacted earth so it's normally not that bad to cross. The key to making it across is to keep speed going through the mud and DON'T STOP. If the truck stops you're done. Well, I was the first vehicle to cross - no problem, then truck #2 crossed - no problem; truck #3 - no problem, truck #4 - slowed as it hit the curb and STOPPED! Oh great. It started to move and then that's when it started to turn bad - the back end of the MRAP started to sink. At that moment the whole patrol knew we were going to be sitting for a while.

Now, the MRAPs have winches on the front bumper for just this type of predicament. The problem, someone has to get out to hook the winch onto the back bumper of another truck...the key to this - someone has to get out. So, after about 10 minutes of trying to shimmy their way out of the mess they put themselves into the TC (Truck Commander), Viper 7, reluctantly decided he had to get out of the truck and hook up the winch. Truck #2 went back to get in front of the downed vehicle to assist and one of their soldiers got out of their truck, Viper 8. So, Viper 7 & Viper 8 are standing in the raw sewage directing vehicle movement and hooking up the winch...this is when it happened.

Viper 7 was directing one of the MRAPs while walking backward. You can't see through the shit water so you don't know what's at the bottom. What Viper 7 was unable to see was a giant pothole under his next step. BAM! At that moment, from my vehicle looking through the side mirror, all I could see were arms flying and body immediately disappearing! Viper 7 had fallen chest deep into the raw sewage water!! Did we show concern? HELL NO!! Everyone in my truck who could see the incident started busting out laughing. Viper 7 was now covered, literally, head-to-toe in shit water.

To add insult to injury, about two weeks earlier Viper 7 had accrued a nickname for himself. On the way to the same compound (a different route) I was in his vehicle and we were passing some Iraqis cultivating some land near a canal next to the road. Viper 7 asked a general question "What do they grow over there?". One of the interpreters in the back, Charlie, stated "Dey grow vegables". When that is said fast it can be mistaken for "They grow fish bubbles". I know that doesn't make any sense but that's what make it so funny; that is what Viper 7 thought he said. "They grow fish bubbles? How the hell do they grow fish bubbles?!", he asked. Charlie, now annoyed, said "Man, I said dey grow vegables!". Understanding what Charlie said I told Viper 7 "I think he's saying veg-e-tables, not fish bubbles". Once he got it we all started laughing and I told him his new nickname is "bubbles".

So, combining the two stories and utilizing his last name, Brown, it's easy to come up with a new, even better nickname for him - "Brownie Bubbles". I hope you liked our funny day today. Viper 7 wouldn't think it was so funny, but everyone else does!!

Crazy Days in Baghdad

I don't know what's up with this place. It has rained more here in the past 2 months than it did my whole first deployment! It rained more TODAY than it did the whole last deployment! I got up a little late today because we didn't have any missions today. I got up and was hanging out on my bunk reading my wife's email when I started hearing these big booms through the walls of our barracks. You can only imagine what I was thinking! I ran to the upper floor to look out the window to see where the rockets were dropping when it realized that it wasn't rockets at all...it was thunder! The sky was all ominous and dark. Thunder storms are so much different here than back at home. Thunder back home rumbles; thunder here are just loud bangs without the rumble. I'm not sure why that is - maybe because of the different soil or because there is nothing for the sound to echo off of here. Whatever the case may be it sounds very different. There wasn't any rain yet when I looked outside, but about an hour later it started to downpour!! I'm talking Louisiana monsoon rain! It continued to rain for about 2 hours in this heavy sheet of rain. Before you know it the streets on our compound were flooded and the sidewalks were starting to become flooded. The sand is so hard here that it doesn't have a chance to absorb the heavy rain. Plus, the streets here aren't crowned like they are back home because they don't expect rain here that often. There are certain places on the roads of my compound that the water comes up to mid-shin. This is just after two hours of rain! What's crazy is that this water on the compound is moderate compared to what we're going to see when we leave the gate tomorrow to go on a mission. There will be water all over the place out there because not only will standing rain water be everywhere, but the sewage system here sucks and will be overflowed. The last rain we got here about four weeks ago caused a major sewage back up and most of Baghdad was flooded for about two weeks! The bad thing about the flooding is that you know most of it is raw sewage. You know this because you can see "things" floating in the water that shouldn't be there. Also, the smell will be horendous tomorrow when we leave the gate. This country normally smells but it isn't that bad because everything is dry and the "true" smell can't escape because it's not wet. Well, tomorrow everything is going to be wet - trash, sewage, dead animals and rotten vegetables. I can't wait to smell the stench!! Yeah, right. I would have taken pictures of the weather today and posted them, but it was raining so hard that I didn't want to mess up my expensive camera.
It's also gotten colder here but there's nothing to write about that. We're all happy it's colder now. It sure beats the shitty heat that normally consumes this place 9 months out of the year!