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pecuniumI'm back from Hospital, with better news than I had hoped for.
We got up, packed our bags and were about to leave when trouble arrived, in the form of two colonels. At the beginning of June we have a change of command, and the old and new commanders were making the rounds of the domain they inhabit.
Half an hour was eaten while hellos were made to people we've not seen in awhile and I played postmaster for mail call, because there was no way on God's green earth I was going to leave without seeing if I had mail (I did, three pieces, one of which had chocolate covered almonds, I've not made the effort to turn the semi-liquid mass into a candy bar, but I shall).
A short drive to the heli-pad, where we were not quite late, and we climbed in, even as the aircraft started to tremble from the slow turning of the rotor starting to turn. We sat, in the strange flickering light (caused by the rotors) which inhabits the inside of a helicopter.
People compare powerful vehicles to horses; they are described as quivering, jumping, bolting. The liftoff was none of those, it was rather a springbok. The nose came up and then we leapt to the left, the bird leaning over so the one side showed sky, and the other concrete.
We were over fields, most of which have already been harvested, the wheat stubble groomed in the odd geometry of the combine, shaped by the lay of the land. In the middle of the golden fields were islands of gray dirt, just high enough that they were not sown, or perhaps the grain could not thrive.
Moving north, the pilot decided he needed to gain a hundred feet or so. The nose popped up and our stomachs were left behind. A hundred and fifty later he shoved the nose down and we dropped, until we were below where he wanted be, and we attained equilibrium at the altitude he wanted. The specialist across from me had eyes the size of saucers, and was grabbing the shoulders of the people next to her. Sergeant First Class Villagomez was wide-eyed too, with the joy of a child. He was a crew chief on Hueys in Vietnam and this was like the fun flying he remembered.
It got better, as we came up to the Tigris and the bird got down low. The water was green, sluggish and dappled with light. Here and there were small rowboats, grazing herds of cattle, people working the fields. Some of them were blase, but most turned to look, and several waved.
As we wound our way up the river, widening and narrowing, the color of the water changing from brown-green to clear green and back as the depth changed, we saw sandstone bluffs, rising until some were above us. One had a shepherd at its base, his flock on the narrow shelf, and he sitting in the late morning shade.
Then we were landing in Mosul, the wash of the rotors knocking the grass away as we passed over the medians, and the soft flare of the nose, and we were creatures of the ground again, and the Blackhawk was gone, leaping away to the left, back to the sky.
Villagomez wouldn't let me carry my stuff, and so it was that I sat in chair while he made the second trip to ferry the rest of our gear. I was hot, sore and thirsty, so I took a long pull from my canteen, which reminded me, from the green taste, that I'd not changed the water in a month or so.
The hospital I was going to lies at the other end of the airstrip from the helipad, and so we needed to hitch a ride, life suddenly felt like a novel out of Vietnam. We happened to be sitting next to a filed mess and I asked a SGT if we could get a bottle of water. He, obliging, brought us some. I told SFC Villagomez to take a look, because the bottles were beaded with sweat.
That water was cold. It was not cool, it was not chill, it was COLD. Cold as I've not had a drink since the plane that flew us to Kuwait. So cold it had to be taken in small draughts, because it would freeze the brain and contract the stomach.
It was divine.
We caught a ride and I signed in. My vitals were normal and I went out to wait for the doctor. While I was waiting one of the troops in the anteroom was told he was going to Landstuhl, in Germany, and then home. His sergeant was stunned.
He looked at CPT Hadley with an incredulous look, and finally said, "You're joking, right?"
When I was called in, some twenty minutes later he still had not really accepted that the PFC was not going back with them.
I was questioned, poked, prodded and stuck. Somewhere between the initial exam and the blood-draw I started to feel flushed. I asked the tech to humor me and bring a thermometer. I had a slight fever.
I was taken back for x-rays. After about a dozen films were taken of my back I was returned to the ward, where I was given my diagnoses. It seems I have Rieter's Syndrome. It's a form of reactive arthritis. Something I've caught (dysentery one of the common causes) has caused me to have a form of arthritis. A new regimen of drugs and a follow up in two-weeks.
Which leaves us with a small problem, we've no ride home.
I join Villagomez in the hospital mess and just sort of collapse. I have a headache, I'm hot, and I can't really eat, so I place my head in arms and try to rest. He tells me I have to eat, so I ask him to get me some fruit and cake. He brings me a salad, as well as some pudding in addition to pears and cake. I manage to eat the salad (well, I left the bell peppers on the plate) and some of the pears.
I go and get my drugs, and lie down in the anteroom, while he looks for a ride to the other side of the base. When we get to that side of the post, I lie down in the grass at the side of the road, and drift. There is some sort of celebration going on, and the 101st Band is playing. Had I felt better I would have enjoyed most of it. After the music he found a Sergeant Major, who gave us a couple of cots. After we got settled he went to the tower and came back to tell me we had a ride at 1030 hrs, and we needed to be at the field at 0500. I went back to my uneasy sleep.
When he woke me, I found out I'd misheard 1030 when he'd said 0630.
Waiting for our ride to the bird I saw a throne outside the weather room. It was a carved chair of some dark wood, in the Assyrian style, with crenellated towers for a back and animals with square-bearded faces for legs. When I sat in it, with my hands on the hats of the beasts, I had a lion, mouth agape and teeth showing behind my shoulders.
I felt important.
We got back here, dropped our gear and I went to eat, so I could take my pills.
Then I went to sleep. It was wonderful. For the first time in days, perhaps weeks, sleeping did not hurt. When I awoke my foot looked better.
We got up, packed our bags and were about to leave when trouble arrived, in the form of two colonels. At the beginning of June we have a change of command, and the old and new commanders were making the rounds of the domain they inhabit.
Half an hour was eaten while hellos were made to people we've not seen in awhile and I played postmaster for mail call, because there was no way on God's green earth I was going to leave without seeing if I had mail (I did, three pieces, one of which had chocolate covered almonds, I've not made the effort to turn the semi-liquid mass into a candy bar, but I shall).
A short drive to the heli-pad, where we were not quite late, and we climbed in, even as the aircraft started to tremble from the slow turning of the rotor starting to turn. We sat, in the strange flickering light (caused by the rotors) which inhabits the inside of a helicopter.
People compare powerful vehicles to horses; they are described as quivering, jumping, bolting. The liftoff was none of those, it was rather a springbok. The nose came up and then we leapt to the left, the bird leaning over so the one side showed sky, and the other concrete.
We were over fields, most of which have already been harvested, the wheat stubble groomed in the odd geometry of the combine, shaped by the lay of the land. In the middle of the golden fields were islands of gray dirt, just high enough that they were not sown, or perhaps the grain could not thrive.
Moving north, the pilot decided he needed to gain a hundred feet or so. The nose popped up and our stomachs were left behind. A hundred and fifty later he shoved the nose down and we dropped, until we were below where he wanted be, and we attained equilibrium at the altitude he wanted. The specialist across from me had eyes the size of saucers, and was grabbing the shoulders of the people next to her. Sergeant First Class Villagomez was wide-eyed too, with the joy of a child. He was a crew chief on Hueys in Vietnam and this was like the fun flying he remembered.
It got better, as we came up to the Tigris and the bird got down low. The water was green, sluggish and dappled with light. Here and there were small rowboats, grazing herds of cattle, people working the fields. Some of them were blase, but most turned to look, and several waved.
As we wound our way up the river, widening and narrowing, the color of the water changing from brown-green to clear green and back as the depth changed, we saw sandstone bluffs, rising until some were above us. One had a shepherd at its base, his flock on the narrow shelf, and he sitting in the late morning shade.
Then we were landing in Mosul, the wash of the rotors knocking the grass away as we passed over the medians, and the soft flare of the nose, and we were creatures of the ground again, and the Blackhawk was gone, leaping away to the left, back to the sky.
Villagomez wouldn't let me carry my stuff, and so it was that I sat in chair while he made the second trip to ferry the rest of our gear. I was hot, sore and thirsty, so I took a long pull from my canteen, which reminded me, from the green taste, that I'd not changed the water in a month or so.
The hospital I was going to lies at the other end of the airstrip from the helipad, and so we needed to hitch a ride, life suddenly felt like a novel out of Vietnam. We happened to be sitting next to a filed mess and I asked a SGT if we could get a bottle of water. He, obliging, brought us some. I told SFC Villagomez to take a look, because the bottles were beaded with sweat.
That water was cold. It was not cool, it was not chill, it was COLD. Cold as I've not had a drink since the plane that flew us to Kuwait. So cold it had to be taken in small draughts, because it would freeze the brain and contract the stomach.
It was divine.
We caught a ride and I signed in. My vitals were normal and I went out to wait for the doctor. While I was waiting one of the troops in the anteroom was told he was going to Landstuhl, in Germany, and then home. His sergeant was stunned.
He looked at CPT Hadley with an incredulous look, and finally said, "You're joking, right?"
When I was called in, some twenty minutes later he still had not really accepted that the PFC was not going back with them.
I was questioned, poked, prodded and stuck. Somewhere between the initial exam and the blood-draw I started to feel flushed. I asked the tech to humor me and bring a thermometer. I had a slight fever.
I was taken back for x-rays. After about a dozen films were taken of my back I was returned to the ward, where I was given my diagnoses. It seems I have Rieter's Syndrome. It's a form of reactive arthritis. Something I've caught (dysentery one of the common causes) has caused me to have a form of arthritis. A new regimen of drugs and a follow up in two-weeks.
Which leaves us with a small problem, we've no ride home.
I join Villagomez in the hospital mess and just sort of collapse. I have a headache, I'm hot, and I can't really eat, so I place my head in arms and try to rest. He tells me I have to eat, so I ask him to get me some fruit and cake. He brings me a salad, as well as some pudding in addition to pears and cake. I manage to eat the salad (well, I left the bell peppers on the plate) and some of the pears.
I go and get my drugs, and lie down in the anteroom, while he looks for a ride to the other side of the base. When we get to that side of the post, I lie down in the grass at the side of the road, and drift. There is some sort of celebration going on, and the 101st Band is playing. Had I felt better I would have enjoyed most of it. After the music he found a Sergeant Major, who gave us a couple of cots. After we got settled he went to the tower and came back to tell me we had a ride at 1030 hrs, and we needed to be at the field at 0500. I went back to my uneasy sleep.
When he woke me, I found out I'd misheard 1030 when he'd said 0630.
Waiting for our ride to the bird I saw a throne outside the weather room. It was a carved chair of some dark wood, in the Assyrian style, with crenellated towers for a back and animals with square-bearded faces for legs. When I sat in it, with my hands on the hats of the beasts, I had a lion, mouth agape and teeth showing behind my shoulders.
I felt important.
We got back here, dropped our gear and I went to eat, so I could take my pills.
Then I went to sleep. It was wonderful. For the first time in days, perhaps weeks, sleeping did not hurt. When I awoke my foot looked better.
