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XiXo
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So last Saturday night, my teeth started being sensitive to hot food. Didn't think much of it, transient sensitivity, blah blah blah.
By Sunday, it was hot and cold, but passable. By Monday afternoon, even a drink of water sent waves of agony lasting 10-20 seconds.
Tuesday, I go to the dentist first thing. "Umm...you need an emergency root canal, and because of your genetic tooth problem, it is beyond my scope of practice. Go to #Clinic and see #Dentist and have it done, he's waiting for you.
Tell the boss (I'm supposed to be working while this is going on)Go to #Clinic, and #Dentist works on an emergent root canal for an hour+, and then he tells me "I can't get it. You're canals are impossible to find because of #Genetic Defect...go back and have it pulled, they're waiting for you.
Go back to the original clinic in the hospital, with a numb face, and wait for an hour while they finish up with some other poor soul.
Get in the room, get in the death chair, and proceed to meet my oral surgeon who says "...this can go really quickly, or it can take awhile, I'm hoping for quickly. We'll just do it under local anasthetic." Have I mentioned I have had so much dental work done in the past that I would really rather just be knocked out for anything more than a cleaning?
90+ minutes of prying and drilling and chipping, piece by damn piece, most of the offending tooth is out. They shoot another x-ray (they stopped after 60 minutes and got an x-ray to determine progress), and decide the fragment of remaining tooth dust is OK to stay where it is. They stitch up my gums, and send me on my way with some penicillin and vicodin, and tell me to come back Friday for a follow up.
So now, thanks to an hour and a half of prying and torquing and using my cheek bones as leveage points, my jaw *f-inghurts*. Once the novocaine (or whatever *-caine they used) wore off, it was the soreness of my law bone and joint more than the gaping hole in my mouth that hurt the most.
So I was stuck on pudding and scrambled eggs and jello for a couple of days, slowly working back up to normal food, adn I have to let the chasm heal for four months before I can get something to replace the tooth they stole from me.
To top it off, my boss calls me Wednesday and asks if I can fly to Germany. I told him that I would love to go, but asked him if it was him I was taking care of at 30,000 feet, would he be comfortable knowing I was only 2 or 3 days post-op, high as a kite on narcotic painkillers...he said he'd find someone else.
( I tried going without taking the narcotics today, and didn't fare so well, so I'm back on them now - it took me longer to go through and edit all the typos and misspellings than it did to type it...)
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So I'm in another room of the house, and my wife goes into the kitchen, and promptly comes to find me and tell me "You get to clean that mess up..."
Turns out the toddler had figured out how to open the pantry and gotten down the cereal container filled with Fruity Pebbles.
So I find about 4 pound of Fruit flavored sugar pellets scattered all over my kitchen floor.
I am SO glad I have a vacuum that doesn't lose suction.
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We had our first ultrasound Friday afternoon. Looks like this kid's going to have a big head, like the last one. I'll post pictures once we scan them. Wifey is still having a hard time with the pregnancy, and as such, has deemed this our last child. Not that I'm complaining, I am quite content with two children.
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Well, once again, our laptop has gone down the crapper. This is the second time with the same problem (bad AC connection on mother board). It's not a terribly difficult fix, I've done it before. This time, I posted how I did it (http://www.asylumnation.com/asylum/...5/index.html?s=). Just frustrating. We desperatly need new machines. We have a desktop that hasn't had any upgrades since I got it, shit, 7 years ago now? It still has only 256 of RAM and 10G of HD space. Our laptop, which is a little better at only being 3 1/2 or so years old, has had RAM and HD upgraded, but it still lags with all the graphics I put through it with photoshop and dreamweaver. Just such a pain. I wish technology didn't become obsolete once you took it out of the styrofoam.
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January 24, 2003
Well, we were supposed to go #Direction to #City two days ago, and now they're saying that tomorrow for sure. We'll see, I guessw. From what I hear, #City is the wild west of the desert. Everyone carries a weapon, and they make contact on the perimeter just about every night. Supposedly we might spend all of our time in #City, rotating missions within the battalion. I plan to send a couple of #Deployment t-shirts home that I found here. Did absolutely NOTHING today - the last word was to have everything packed, ready to go...and sure enough we spent all day waiting, inside a tent, because it RAINED. Something I haven't mentioned yet - the food. Yesterday was steak and eggs for breakfast, and calzomes for dinner. I haven't had more than a powerbar for lunch, but that is my own doing. Interesting note, for some reason ( I think altitude adjustment) everyone is having to take a leak like every 10 minutes - what's up with that?
January 25, 2003
Landed in #City today. The town is in a bowl at about 1500m above sea level, and all sides mountains rise thousands of feet. I had only about an hour left of daylihg,t and about half of that was spent in a briefing, so I didn't see much scenery. The facilities (latrines, showers, etc.) aren't as nice as #Other City, but the tents are much better (rugs, shelving, tables, etc.), and the chow hall - we didn't eat this well back in North Carolina! Excellent food, and as much of it as you want. Apparently there was a rocket attack the other night that landed about 200m outside the wire - we'll see how the op-tempo is here. Lot's more air traffic -UH 60's, AH-64's, CH-47's, A-10's, F-15's, F-16's, AV-8B's, as well as many different armies. Just in my 6 hours here I've seen Italian, Czech, British, South Korea, Romania, and every branch of the US save the Coast Guard.
January 26, 2003
Super Bowl Sunday. The game should begin in about 4 hours.
...Found out that the pipes burst in the ceiling at home and flooded the master bedroom. Very distraught over that - I really didn't want #Wife to have to deal with that, even though #Friend is with her.
(ADDENDUM - Turned out that the sprinkler pipes in the apartment weren't built to code, and when #Wife left the apartment to go to her parents house, and shut off utilities [with landlord approval], the pipes froze. She got back to the apartement the next day to find a news crew in the apartment shooting footage. We were sued twice over this deal, the last of which was finalized a few months ago, and found not liable both times)
January 31, 2003
Another day in #City without much excitement. The clouds that have been hanging around for the last several days cleared out, leaving us with beautiful scenery and ass cold temperatures. Spent several hours in the attic above the TOC (tactical operations center) rerouting network cables and CAT5 cable, because the commo guys who are responsible for it said it couldn't be done, but we needed it.
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Inspired by the poetry thread, I fuond my journal from when I deployed to #Country, and I've decided to share some of these ramblings with y'all. Aren't you lucky?
January 17, 2003
We are supposed to leave for the desert today. Spirits amongst the men are surprisingly high - much laughter and carrying on between the ranks. Either everybody is so keyed up to leave that nothing bothers them, or they are so bothered they use the humor to fill empty thoughts. I, for one, am quite distraught with having to leave home, a mere six months after the wedding, but am anxious to get on with it. We do what we must, and the sooner we start, the sooner the end will be here.
January 18, 2003
Landed in Germany today, Rhein-Main Airbase (co-located with Frankfurt International, now closed). The flight was fairly uneventful...just long. Over 7 hours (closer to 8) in a MD-11 with over two hundred others; I can think of about eight hundred things that would be funner. It's just before 11 o'clock Zulu time, another two hours or so and it'll be back on the bird, a C-17 this time, so no inflight movies, and about another eight hours and we'll be in country. #Unit is the first to leave Germany, so hopefully it means we'll be the first ones out. I miss my wife terribly, her loving stare and graceful touch. She truly is an angel amongst us. Time can't go fast enough until I see her again.
January 18, 2003
Somewhere over easter Europe, on the flight from Rhein-Main to #City. Time is 1845 Zulu, and most of the #Number people on board are passed out, amongst a sea of equipment and other bodies. We are less than halfway there, and I'm left to think about what lay ahead. Not only the next six months, but beyond. When will we have kids, what kind of dogshould we get, where we settle down, what to do after this enlistment... I don't know for sure what the desert will bring to bear, although I'm sure that we will all return home better people for having made the trip. I miss my wife, my bed, the ability to just GO HOME@ So far, rest and relaxation come sporadically. The most relaxing thing we have encountered thus far is sharing video games and making fun of our closest friends. No one will admit it freely, but each of us would risk all that we have to help one another. I've heard all the cliches, seen the movies...most of us don'e do this for the President's foreign policy, or because we want to blow shit up (although, few things are as fun), but rather we do it for the 13 stripes and 50 stars we wear on our shoulder, and for the guy to our left and right. Doing absolutely difficult things together produces a bond a thousand times stronger than steel - It produces a brotherhood of men that will do anything for another. "Greater love has no man that he lay down his life for a friend."
January 19 (20?), 2003
Around 2230 Zulu time, flying to Afghanistan, again. Original plan had us landing about 0100 this morning, but we had to divert to #Country due to weather. We were in #Country long enough to gas up and stretch, then back to Germany for some reason. Something about us not being allowed in #Country...no details furnished. Since we left NC we have spent more time in the air than not, and we are all feeling the effects. When we are on land, I can't stand up without feeling like I'm in motion. Needless to say this plays hell with my equilibrium and ability to see straight. If I'm up, things are moving. All #Number of us desperately want to reach #City, if for no other reason than we just spent at 30K feet (sic, all told, it totalled ~ 26 hours flying time). Despite all of this, spirits remain high - much laughter and banter, and although over 1/3 of the company (probably more) have been with us less than six months, not a man here has not already established himself with the others and made friends. The camraderieis so thick in the air amongst us it can almost be seen floating around the dozing bodies. Although there is fear and uncertainty here (for we really don't know what to expect when we land), I am overjoyed and imensely proud to be a part of this chapter in History, esspecially so for the company I am with. #Name from Wyoming, #Name from Texas, #Name from Missouri, #Name from North Carolina...on and on, each one with a different story, each one with a story common to all. One of the proudest momentsof my existence has been assembling with the men with whom I've bled, sweat, and cried with, and beginning this voyage to ensure that the nation we love so can sleep safe another night.
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For anyone who cares, my old blog can be found at www.paratroopersaresexy.blogspot.com
I was feeling nostalgic, and reading some of the oldies, and below is one of my faves, from September of 2004:
It was the best of times...
Being in the military, you always here the cliches about how this will turn out to be the best time of your life, and you'll have all these great memories, and what not.
At the time, you really don't think so. I remember running a mission in the mountains of Afghanistan, blowing up thousands of pounds of cached weapons. We got stuck outside of this little village for almost three days because the weather was so bad the pilots couldn't get the choppers in to get us out. We had planned for a 18 hour mission (it was supposed to take 3 hours) After the first 36 hours, we had very minimal food and no water, and really no hopes of getting any. We literally pooled our money and paid the locals for food and firewood to keep warm and thaw out (the first night it poured down freezing rain ALL NIGHT LONG - needless to say the next day was a cold friggin' day). This was by far the coldest experience I have ever had in my life. You know how your fingers get if you spend too long in the tub or shower? My HANDS, to my wrists, were like that, pure white, for 3 days after the mission ended and we finally got back to our tents.
We went from that to having to climb thousands of feet of the most severe terrain I have ever thought about, in full battle gear, in 130° heat. We would drink a gallon of water before breakfast. Everyday. It was so hot that there would be random lightning storms almost every night - very surreal. We were fortunate enough to have our resupply helicopters (we were operating out of a forward base somewhere in the country) carry some of our supplies to the tops of the mountains we had outposts on for us. But everything else we carried. Weapons, ammo, extra water, food. Plus our body armor, and radios (with batteries), and all the other necessary items to sustain yourself on a combat mission.
And you know what? Those cliches are right. I look back at my experiences in Afghanistan, getting 107mm rockets shot at us almost nightly, to my travels through greater Baghdad, Iraq, having 82mm mortars landing in the lake next to our living quarters, and I can't help but to laugh.
We had a couple minutes of downtime today, and we were reliving some of our tales, and we were laughing our asses off about some of the stuff we did. Like driving full speed in a Ford Ranger pickup between bases in Iraq, in the middle of the night, with no lights on because we could see tracer fire in the direction we were going and didn't want to let the bad guys know we were coming, with rifles loaded sticking out the window just in case. Or having to make checks around the perimeter of our base in Afghanistan making sure the towers had batteries for their radios, and having the headlights of our John Deere® Gator going out, so we turned on our triple-A powered headlamps and kept hauling ass.
Everything from our section leader at the time insisting we all got up at sun-up to go running (we all got up before sun-up and left him alone) to the donkey we hired to carry supplies up a mountain that fell down about 700 feet of jagged terrain (we had to put the donkey out of its misery the next morning - our chain of command wouldn't let us risk going out and doing it at night, and we had to pay the locals for the donkey), to the guy who we bet couldn't eat a case of 30 yogurt's in 30 minutes (he made it to 22 in the first 7 minutes, and then only got 4 more in the rest of the time).
At the time, it was some of the most horrible experiences of my life, and some of the things I saw on my world-tour-to-date will be etched into my brain for eternity, forever haunting me at the most inopportune times. But looking back at it now, I had some of the funniest times of my life with those guys, and I will never forget the times we had, and most of the memories we made.
I remember those times mostly with fondness an laughter, lightheartedly making fun of each other for some of the stupider things we did while there (see above night-time driving stories), but I also remember the camaraderie - the knowledge that at any time I could be called upon to literally save the life of my closest friends, or help them kick the living crap out of someone that was trying to kill both of us. If you have never shared the experience of whole-heartedly fearing for your life with someone else, you really don't know the kind of closeness that we soldiers share - I believe even more so in our unit. Shared hardship is one of the things that bring people closest together, and an Airborne Infantry unit that has spent 12 of the last 21 months in a combat zone half a world away have shared a lot of hardship together.
I continue to pray for my brothers and sisters still over there, and I sincerely hope you do, too.
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I'm going to rant a bit now.
I've been in teh military for a while now, and as such, have yet to complete a college degree. Don't get me wrong, I've been working on it, and I was pretty darn sure the class I am taking now was to be my last one.
Just to check myself, I requested an evaluation of my degree plan progress, and these rat bastards are now telling me that after this class I'll be 2 credits shy, because they wouldn't accept one of my transfer classes.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH....
Now, normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but being in the military, it's a bit more complicated. I have to go get a form signed by the commander (for those of you who were or are now in the military, one knows you simply don't walk up to the commander and say "sign this, please"), take it to the education center so they can un-hold my account (it's on hold waiting for this form, which I wasn't worried about, because I thought I would be done!), then register for a class. Since it's an online thing, classes start every month, but it takes a couple of weeks to get textbooks shipped, and since it's the end of the fiscal year, if I want to register for a class that starts October 1, I really need to do it, like, tomorrow. But I work nights, and my day tomorrow will be spent sleeping, so I'm alert enough not to kill any of our patients tomorrow night.
Stupid college.
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