Training the Best

What is an up chit you ask? A very important little piece of paper which clears me to fly and therefore clears me to start flight school. Don't get excited yet, I am still projected to class up in mid December; that has not changed.

So in pursuit of this 1/3 sheet of paper, which comes complete with a pink, yellow, and white copy, I have had quite an adventure. My initial flight physical included a waiver for a kidney stone, more labs than you could ever imagine, and three seven hour round trips from Chapel Hill to Cherry Point, NC. Just try to get yourself to sleep at 9pm when you are on a college sleeping schedule. I had to wake up at 3 am to be in Cherry Point at 0730 all three times. Good lord that was painful. And of course you can not eat or drink anything for 12 hours before the labs are drawn. Not fun.

Then, due to the wonderful work of my officer selection office I had to go do another one. Flight physicals are only good for two years and they could not get their shit together fast enough to get me into TBS before my original expired. Once again I was on the road at 3am on my way to Cherry Point. Everything went well, except for the fact that Ophthalmology was not taking any appointments that day. "Sir would you mind coming back next week?" You've got to be fucking kidding me. "Do I mind? Yes. Will I do it? Yes." I don't yet know what I won't do to get into the air, but I'm sure it's not pretty.

So I got here to Pensacola and got through my physical with no sweat but those two remaining wisdom teeth had to come out. Ok, fine, let's do it. I dread dental work like anyone else but if it is necessary for me to fly, let's get it on.

The Navy actually did a really good job and they came out without much pain at all. I was really sweating it, they hooked me up to a pulse and blood pressure monitor while they prepped me for the extraction and my BP was something like 185/90 and a heart rate in the high 80s. The doctor saw that and jokingly asked if I was a little nervous about the extraction. I tried to play it cool, but it's hard to convince someone you're not nervous when your heart rate and blood pressure are on a ten inch monitor right next to you.

All of this anxiety comes from a terrible experience at the UNC dental school last year when they removed my lower right wisdom tooth. Everyone has likely heard the story, but an hour and a half of back spasm inducing pain is not something you readily forget.

After being on light duty for a week I went back to dental to make sure that I had attained a class two dental status in order to get my up chit and discovered that I need a filling. Crap! I still got my up chit because I am class two without the filling but I now have to go back on the 26th to get this tooth filled. That will make me class one dental and end my dental odyssey for now. I hope.

// posted by Josh @ 10/17/2005 03:34:00 PM