Death Ride

After the way too eventful final visit with family before flying out of the country, my in-laws had already decided to drive us back up to the Great White North.  Honestly, I really do not remember much of the final days in their home.  Nor do I remember actually getting into the van.  All I knew at the time is that I was best off in the fetal position, avoiding all encounters with gravity that I could.  Thoroughly drugged and making a very slow recovery, I had somehow found myself on the back bench of their van for the two and a half day drive north through winter weather conditions. Everything about that trip is a fog.  Everything but one thing, that is.  That one thing which caused all of our lives flash before our eyes.  

I had woken up on the second day on the road.  Carefully testing my body against the shift of gravity, I carefully sat up and buckled my seat belt.  I remember carefully resting my burning face against the cool glass, closing my eyes in relief.  Upon opening my eyes, I saw that we were deep into the Great White North.  The roads were covered in ice.  Snow blew like ghosts over the cold throbbing white of the winter scape.  Looking forward, I could see my engineer talking to his parents and working to keep our Angel occupied.  Almost immediately, he saw that I was up and asked how I was doing.  Smiling weakly, I said something about being up.  Checking in on our little one, I saw that she was happy and busy. 

That is when I saw it.  The overpass.  At about the same time I noticed it, the van went into a high speed spin, right towards it.  Gripping the seat belt and bracing my feet, I looked at my engineer and my angel...as if for the last time.  Unable to close my eyes, I watched in horror as the supporting pillar rushed towards us.  As we were spinning, my father in law was concentrating on trying to guide the van through the ice, spin, bridge, and high winds.  

There was a sense of grace as I watched the pillar pass us as we spun underneath and through the underpass.  Though I knew that we weren't safe yet, there was a feeling that a serious miracle had just taken place.  I looked ahead at my father in law as he drove and concentrated with all his might to get us to safety.  

We were in a sideways skid going down the freeway when the van's front wheels hit the landscaped (now covered in snow) divider.  At this point, my mind KNEW that we were going to flip and roll.  The speed at which we were careening, the force with which we hit the divider, and the top heavy nature of the van were the needed elements for a glorious flip and roll.  

But it didn't happen!  Instead, the van skidded in the divider and took us in the opposite direction on the interstate!  I remember thanking God for His faithfulness.  There were so many ways that event could have been deadly.  All I can guess is that He had other plans for us.  Looking back on that Death Ride, I can't help but remember what immediately jumped to my mind in the midst of the spin.  All I wanted was for my engineer and Angel to make it out safely.  Nothing else was important to me at that point.  In my heart and mind, I prayed that they would live.  

There are things that happen in our lives that reveal what our hearts' desire most.  Sometimes the discoveries are hard and we must work to adjust our priorities to be more inline with our beliefs.  However, there are times when you find that what you want most in the world is for those you love to be safe, ahead of your own desires for yourself.  While the experience was horrifying, I am happy with the discovery that I made.  

Bad Medicine

During the entire time we were trying to pack out and leave our home, I was battling a nasty sinus infection.  This baby was a doozy.  It had started the beginning of October....and we packed out the end of October...final out middle of November.  So, you see...this beasty was hanging on with EVERYTHING it had!  Even though I had promptly gone to the clinic, things weren't working. 

This is where I need to insert a note, and it MIGHT be a long one.  For those of you who are military, you will completely understand what I am going to write about.  However, for those of you who aren't, this will be new to you.  In order to understand what I will be discussing, I feel like I need to explain "normal" to you.

When the civilian world talks about the countless benefits that the military receives (and this is often paired with a note of scorn), health care and housing are at the very top of the list.  Now, I hope you got a bit of a glimpse into the housing that we are sometimes given...and expected to live in with huge smiles on our faces.  Just wait until I tell you about our home in the Orient...what we had in the Great White North is a palace in comparison.  But I am digressing...

With Military Medicine, as with everything else, the mission comes first.  This means that those in uniform are a priority, which is very understandable to me.  Priority for Military Doctors is in this order:

1. Downrange Needs
2. Transport Medical Needs
3. Actual Installation Facility Needs
4. Active Duty
5. Families

These men and women do the best they can for the people that they are tasked to serve.  However, sometimes it just isn't enough.  There are typically only 1, sometimes, 2 pediatricians per base, and they may be nurse practitioners.  Even though the military breeds like rabbits (due to the vast majority being in the prime of their lives), how many pediatricians are really needed downrange (though humanitarian missions are countless...)?  Though the military works hard to provide, if you aren't stationed near a large medical center, you will have quite a wait to see a doc.  I accept this and try really hard to plan accordingly.  

Often, even though you are assigned a Permanent Care Provider (PCM), if your clinic is smaller and the population huge, when care is needed, you will have to schedule with someone else.  The whole time we were stationed in the Great White North, I only saw my assigned PCM twice.  All the other times, either my PCM had moved and they had changed my PCM or my PCM wasn't available.  You roll with it.  My engineer never had a problem seeing his...but I am just a dependent...so I take what I can get.

However, there are times when the constant passing of patients becomes deadly dangerous.  Unfortunately, that is what happened with me and my stupid sinus infection. 

I had a cold.  After drinking a lot of water, getting rest, keeping things clear, and taking lots of C, it morphed into a sinus infection.  The pain was unbearable, and knowing there wasn't much more I could do for it, I went into the clinic.  I was careful about how I used the clinic.  I know that they were always overrun by people who felt the clinic was a national past time, so I tried really hard to only go when needed.  At that point, I HAD to go in.    I had not choice.  The move was at our front door.  My baby needed me to be on my game.  Things were just getting worse.  

The first appointment that I had was with the first available doctor.  I will never forget it.  I had sat in the waiting room for an hour.  The poor Airman at the desk kept apologizing for being behind schedule.  Knowing that happens, I just settled back with my book.  Finally being called back, they took my vitals and left me in the room.  After half an hour, I had poked my head out the door, only to be told that the doctor would be with me shortly.  Fifteen minutes later, he breezed in the door, felt my face, gave me a script...and left.  Ok...7 minutes...  I guess I can live with that.  

Unfortunately, four days later, I was far worse, not better.  After calling my mother (an RN) and being told that I should have seen improvements within 2 days, I called the clinic for a phone consult.  The next day, I got a call from a nurse who told me that I just had to finish the 2 weeks of medication and come in if it is worse.  With a big gulp, feeling like that was all I could do, I followed her clipped advice.  By the end of the two weeks on medication that did not work, I felt like the walking dead.  After setting up another appointment, I went in again.

This time, I saw a different medical practitioner...again, not my PCM.  They just couldn't get me in.  After yet another long wait, I was finally called in.  After hearing what was going on, including the push I had to just finish the other medication (despite its ineffectiveness), she told me I needed something stronger.  Having qualms about jumping from one antibiotic to another, I questioned her about the wisdom of starting something stronger so soon.  She told me that it was my only option.  So, with great frustration, I obeyed...

During this whole time, we were cleaning out our home for its final inspection and preparing for one last trip to see family before boarding a plane for the Orient.  We were staying with dear friends during this period of upheaval.  All that can be said is that our lives were pure chaos...and being sick made it worse.

Having given up and working to "Embrace the Suck," I followed doctor's orders...and paired it with lots of yogurt.  Unfortunately, two days later, when we were to board a train south to see family, I was deathly ill.  At the time, I had no idea how sick I was.  All I knew was that things were wrong....and in a very big way.  Calling the clinic first thing in the morning, I was told that the soonest they could see me was in two weeks.  I told them that I thought that I might have C-Diff.  To no avail, I was dismissed with a terse, "we are busy and can't get you in for another 2 weeks!"  In tears, I hung up the phone. 

We boarded the train that day.  It is by the Grace of God that we had a sleeper compartment.  My health kept spiraling down...out of control.  After enduring a few days of living hell while "visiting" family, my engineer finally took me to the ER.  Upon arriving at the ER, they immediately rushed me in.  My blood pressure was 53/30.  I thank God for the staff at the hospital.  It is due to their knowledge, willingness to listen, and fast work that I am here today.  You see, I had c-diff colitis.  That is a nasty stomach bug that takes place when all the good bacteria is wiped out (normally through piggy backed antibiotics like I had) and the bad bacteria takes control over your digestive system.  By the time I was finally able to get in where someone would listen to me, I had already had it for a week.  

At this point, after receiving medical attention where I was a patient, not a dependent, I was wary about returning to our military medical clinic for my follow ups (for they were needed).  

From that moment in my life on, I have become a very strong, vocal advocate of both my children's and my own health.  You have to be.  With military medical, the mission comes first....and the families do not.  We have fantastic doctors who are stretched thin and must deploy at a moments notice.  You do have to roll with it to an extent.  However, when something isn't being handled correctly (and I am not talking about petty feelings being hurt!!!), you must stand up for your own healthcare.  As dependents, we have to understand where we fit in The Mission and work with it.  I have some friends who refuse to be seen by military doctors due to horrible experiences.  However, despite this unfortunate experience, I have had some wonderful doctors through the years.  But my hope is that you learn from my story and stand up for your own medical care....even if it means filing complaints (which I did upon our return to the Great White North).

Final Walk Through

After hearing horror stories concerning final walk throughs of base housing, I had talked to several of my friends who were older and I knew had not hired someone to clean for them.  I really didn't want to deal with the stress of not passing an inspection.  Armed with the wisdom of older, wiser, and resourceful women, my engineer and I set forth to prepare for handing our home back to Big Blue.

Most of the items on the list were pretty straight forward.  Making needed repairs and cleaning were a given.  But when the pre-inspection came, I was floored by what was added to the list.  I felt that our home looked really good.  Baseboards and up were spotless.  Despite frozen temperatures, the windows were clean.  All cobwebs in the basement were down and the cement floors were swept.  But when the lady from the housing office told me that I needed to mop them???  All I could think about were the filthy feet we had after walking through the basement the first time after we moved in.

Those floors weren't the only thing that had me shaking my head.  Our house was not spotless when we moved in.  Though in passing shape, when I wiped out the cupboards before unpacking, I did not have a clean rag at the end.  Nor was the tub in the condition that I felt it needed to be in.  Taking a very deep breath, I took the long list of things we had to do in order to make it pass inspection.  At this point, my engineer and I felt the demands would never end.  Nasty, disgusting movers...and now this!

After looking around the house, I decided to cheat...and cheat in a very big way.  Though our floors were in OK shape (they had been scratched up when we moved in), I decided to use the Orange Glo floor kit...and hit ALL the floors in the house.  Using Orange Glo was an explicit NO NO in the housing manual.  But knowing the hard life those floors had lived before we even moved in, all I could think was that it wouldn't hurt.  So the renegade in me took action. As my engineer worked in the kitchen, I aggressively cleaned one room after another up stairs...finishing it off with doing the floors.  To be honest...they looked BEAUTIFUL!!!  Closing each door for the last time, I checked items off my list, one after another.

All the while, our Angel was downstairs playing with my engineer, thoroughly enjoying the echo effect in our painfully empty home.  She had been such a good little girl in the midst of the chaos.  We had one suitcase that was dedicated to toys, so she was busy enjoying what little she had.  Feeling like an awful parent, leaving my daughter to completely entertain herself for such an extended period of time, my engineer and I both worked to finally get out of the house.

I cannot tell you the feeling of satisfaction that I felt when I finished off the floors downstairs.  With an intense feeling of accomplishment and relief, I remember looking into our home from the front door as we walked out, the snow and ice crunching beneath our feet.  Exhausted and fed up with the past week, we headed to billeting, where, like almost all military families, we ordered a pizza from Anthony's Pizza...the global military last supper when moving out.

The next day was our final out.  Walking through the spotless, pristine house, the inspector was amazed at how clean and beautiful everything was.  She kept talking about how beautiful the floors were and how it had been a long time since she had seen floors in such wonderful condition.  Let me tell you, my smile must have been that of the Cheshire Cat...for I seriously felt like I had gotten away with something.  Finally handing over the keys, that first base house was handed back in better condition than it had been when it was given to us.....

only to be fenced off and torn down....shortly after we left.