So a little back story is needed for this one. When i was 13, i was getting terrible pains in my upper abdomen right below my chest. They would make it imposible to breathe, and they would come out of nowhere. usually they'd last anywhere from 15-30 mins then be gone almost as soon as mysterously as they happened. Many tests (to include weekly blood tests, stool tests, ultra sounds and God alone knows what else.) and weeks later i was diagnosed with galbladder disease. if you don't know what that is it's a littl pear shaped bladder that holds bile prodiced by the liver and squirts it into the small intestines.
so in i go for surgery. It was removed and i got ot stay in the hospital for three days having popsicles at all hours of the night and day (for a kid that's really important) and also my dad got FIFTEEN blockbuster movies. Before it was always one or two, but this was a whole stack (to which I though "man i got to get sick more often!) and some of them were R reated!!! lol the things that are important to kids. . .
Fastfoward to a night in mid march 2003. It came back with a vengance in the middle of the night at BCT. i went to the latrine, and damn near screamed it was so bad. but again it went away. I thought i was clear. WRONG. in AIT it happened again this time in the middle of formation, the Drill Sergeants thinking i was faking left me there. Now OIF II. In the middle of lunch on one of those happy runs into Warrior, to get chow and burgers, and of course whatever the PX had to offer, it happened again. this time i went to a little stall in one of the shitter trailers and waited for the pain to subside. It happened once more in the desert, and twice when i was at the ER at Ft Hood (NEVER get sick in your own hospital!). Thoug this whole time i never got more than a routine examination, becaus as i expected after the attacks were over there was no evidence of anything wrong.
Now. 06 October 2007. While sitting at the Mishtal Gas station, contemplating the vomiting i'd had the night before (i still blame the beef brisket) I suddenly had to puke. out came what was left of my dinner, and of course all the water that had been consumed in the meantime. So yea not plesent but back into the truck i go, and for about two minuets i feel fine (strangely enough) then it hits again. this time i simply can't wait it out. I get out of the truck again and try to just act like i'm going to puke again, but i couldn't stand. I collapsed and started screaming in pain.
Bless the souls of my guys. they may not have had a clue what was going on, they treated me pretty well, their limited feild of knowlege in the subject not withstanding. in a strange way it inspired pride in me. It made me belive that if i were ever wounded they'd be able to save me. of course it was small comfort when i was puking out strait bile all over the conferance table at the JSS. One short trip to loyalty later, it was clear that i wouldn't be staying. so tordol (ketrolac) and phenagrin were injected into my system and i was flown to the CSH (Combat Support Hospital) in Baghdad. They told me it was pancreatitis, and told me i was Germany bound.
For the CSH (pronounced "cash") i'll say this, they treated me with such dignity and respect that I felt sure if I were ever wounded that I'd be well taken care of. But also sadly there was the knowlege that Craig , and SFC Doster had died there, or at least been pronounced there. I stayed one day, and then off to the CSH in Balad, for a short stay before being loaded on a C-17 for Landstul Germany. And again I have to praise the medical staff along the way. They saw that i was well taken care of and that i did not suffer, of course i may have gotten too much morphine along the way, but honestly it made the pain disapear.
So tommorow i head back stateside. Nearly everyone is happy about that. Maybe i just hadn't thought about it but people have been amazing in their responses. The kindness shown to my by the "chaplin's corner" will astound people, or at least it did for me. but that is for another entry. Lisa, when she found out, i was alright, was obviously relieved. It's an odd way to find out just how much someone cares. If anyone reads the comment she left on my last post, you'll figgure it out. I just read it myself. So what do i say? In all honesty, she is the person i go to most when i'm hurt, and she is the one that's (almost) always there for me. all the drama aside (like a rollercoster on steroids) she really does love me, even if she doesn't say it, or may not know how to say it. The scary part is when she was talking to me today and mentioned something about Cassy saying she wanted to plan the wedding when i got home she laughed about it but not actually getting married to me, just the fact that she was already married and in the process of getting a divorse. semantics sure, but also a semi freudian slip.
I can not help but feel guilty. Every step of the way i have been treated as if i were special, as if I were one of the many wounded. That i have no wounds, or indeed no imperical data to back up this pain that i felt, only makes the guilt worse. to see some of the young (and not so young) men broken from this war i can not help feeling that such attention is misplaced with me. I have no wounds, and I was never injured, yet still i recieve such treatment.
Perhaps the worst part is that while i have been living in relitive comfort my guys are back out in sector and here I sit powerless to return where i am needed. The frusteration at the entirely logical reasons why i shouldn't go back (spoken by Lisa, my parents, the doctors, nurses and everyone else) only worsens when i think of that little onramp i know them must pass by. Damm this sickness, my weakness. If i can not be told what it is return me to my place of duty! There is a small fear that this will keep me out of the fight permently. Talk about lousy timing.
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