Not A Blog™

At the close of my previous update, I left you with a lot of speculation, but not many hard answers. As the days pass, I’ve been slowly getting more and more information as to my fate over the next few months, solidifying a schedule of existence which is as dreary as it is depressing.

On Tuesday, I finally got out of the hell hole where I’ve been for the past five weeks. This was after being told that they were going to try and get me out first thing on Monday. That plan, for whatever reason, failed.

I’d like to take this time to point out that the Expeditionary Combat Readiness Command (ECRC for short) is almost worthless in any case other than the expected. ECRC is the command ostensibly responsible for taking care of those who are preparing for expeditionary combat (i.e. combat on land, such as in Iraq). You might suppose this includes taking care of those who are injured on their way to expeditionary combat. You would be wrong. During the few days that I was mustering with the ECRC shop, the people working there could hardly be bothered to answer my questions, much less actually do anything that might facilitate my departure. They were not only befuddled by my very presence, but apathetic to boot. I later found out that even though they had heard back from the Navy doctors approving my demobe’, they didn’t act on this until Monday afternoon, at which point it was too late to schedule a flight out until Tuesday.

Even after I got the flight, the LPO of the shop was adamant that myself and the other individual who needed to get to the airport—a guy with a sprained ankle, also on crutches—should call a van pick-up service, and go ourselves. He actually had the audacity to argue with the Senior Chief, saying “this is always what we do. They’re not taking anyone with them”. The fact that I had a leg broken in two places gave him no concern. We were supposed to fly out, and that was that, and it was *way* outside of his job description to do something so ridiculous as handle exceptions to the rule.

After duking it out, the Senior Chief finally said in exasperation that he would take us, since a crippled guy shouldn’t be expected to carry his own 50 pound seabags around the airport. If he hadn’t of stepped up, I would have been screwed. Thanks, ECRC.

Of course, this still meant that I was flying (and carrying a backpack, which I wasn’t technically supposed to be doing, either), and navigating the airport on crutches was not, shall we say, easy. All I can say is thank goodness for the USO. I’ve never had the need to visit the USO before, but I figured I’d stop by since I really didn’t feel like dealing with the typical airport riff raff. In stark contrast to ECRC, they were extremely helpful, with food, internet, a quiet room to myself, and they helped me get to my gate later. I’m definitely going to visit them again on my way home.

The actual flights would have been terrible if not for a generous helping of Vicodin. The combination of changing pressure in the cabin and my leg not being elevated was extremely painful, so I spent most of both flights hyped on medication. On the first leg, a well dressed, portly gentleman gave up his seat in first class for me; the second flight had me in the bulkhead row next to an elderly lady who liked to talk, even after I took two more Vicodin and literally conked out. It was the first time I had ever slept on a plane, and it must have been a very hard sleep because I woke up stiff in every joint.

Fortunately I had a duty driver pick me up from the airport at my destination, and I was able to get a ground floor room at the Navy Inn on base. The room barely has internet: an extremely weak signal that’s prone to dropping out every few minutes. It’s just enough to check email, so it’s better than nothing, but not reliable enough to surf.

I’m in Mississippi because this is where I mobilized through. To demobilize, I need to go back to the same station. Except rather than immediately demobilizing, I’m currently in medical hold, and will be until the Navy decides that I’m back to normal.

The Navy Mobilization Processing Station (NMPS for short) is more helpful than ECRC. They at least deal with injured personnel on a regular basis, and even have their own medical staff to help those cases get through the system. I don’t have any problem with the NMPS staff in general, but I really feel the resentment coming from the duty drivers.

The duty drivers—of which there are perhaps three or four—really seem to be annoyed by the fact that they need to pick me up and drive me from place to place. It bugs me because I already hate being dependent on everyone else to do everything, all the way down to carrying my tray for me in the chow line. I don’t like to mooch. But I have to call the drivers to get anywhere on base and it’s always handled with a vague expression of inconvenience, like they shouldn’t have to be there at all, much less be taxiing my sorry ass around.

On Thursday I finally got my appointment with medical. The Navy doctor who saw me was horrified that I hadn’t had any medical treatment since I left the civilian doctor’s office last Thursday, and said, “I wish I could wring their necks”, referring to ECRC, for holding onto me for as long as they did. (Note: that is an actual quote.) She got me set up with an immediate appointment at the orthopedic center on the nearby air force base.

They took some more X-rays and resplinted my foot. The doctor who examined me there confirmed that I absolutely do need surgery, but that there’s still too much swelling to operate, and he said I need another week in bed with my foot elevated to let that go down. He set a new date for surgery for next Wednesday. I asked if this wouldn’t lead to the bones healing too much before they could be worked on, but he assured me that with the severity of my break–the two pieces of the fibula are separated by an eighth of an inch–it wouldn’t be an issue. So here I am, once again on hold, waiting for the next major step. Following this, I’m still looking at four to six months on med hold.

I called the duty drivers around 12:45 for a pickup. They told me it would “be a while” but weren’t able to give me a specific time.

By 2:15 I had to pee, and the duty drivers still hadn’t showed up. I tucked my cell phone in the waist of my PT shorts (no pockets) with the intent that if I didn’t hear from them by the time I got back from the restroom, I’d give them another call and find out what the deal was. I hobble off down the hall only to discover some five minutes later that restrooms in this labyrinthine hospital were nowhere to be found.

In fact, the restrooms were not marked. After asking a random person if they knew where the closest restroom was, they turned and—I swear I am not making this up—pointed to the nearest unmarked door and said, “there’s one right there.” Ah yes, but of course.

I hobbled into the room and pulled down my shorts—completely forgetting I had my cell phone tucked in the waistband. It dove straight for the toilet. Even after fishing it out (yeah, I washed my hands—like eight times), I had some hope I could let it dry and everything would be fine. But it was on when I dropped it in there, so I knew it was a goner. Sure enough, even after shaking it out and letting it dry for half an hour, it was fried.

Fortunately there was an easy workaround. The front desk in the hospital was unmanned, so I hobbled over there and borrowed their phone. A quick look through the previously dialed numbers directory told me 99 got an outside line, and from there it was a quick call back to NMPS. I didn’t have the duty driver’s direct number (that was in my cell phone), so I called medical and had them check. When I called back, the HM told me they were on their way.

So if they were able to get immediately underway, what were they doing before? Just sitting around? Let me tell you: I do so enjoy being ignored, especially when I’m crippled.

I did some research on the internet and discovered that, luckily, there is a Verizon Wireless store not five miles from base. More than anything, not having a cell phone right now would be a safety issue. If I get hurt somewhere outside my room, I wouldn’t be able call anyone, and nobody could get in contact with me. Regardless, the duty driver chief made it clear that getting me to a store to buy a new cell phone was so far outside the duty driver regulations that he practically burst into flame just thinking about it, so one of the medical staff took me, on her own time, in her own personal vehicle. For this I’m extremely grateful, plus I qualified for a free upgrade, so I got a pretty sweet phone to boot.

As if all the rest of these happenings weren’t bad enough, the base is preparing to evacuate Sunday afternoon. You may have heard something about hurricane Gustav. It happens to be headed directly toward this area—which is still recovering from Katrina three years ago. I get to look forward to a Labor day weekend free from such pesky distractions as internet and electricity.

Broken leg, intermittent internet, fried cell phone, and in the path of a Hurricane. One of these days I just want something to go right.

-Ted

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