Visiting the Doctors

Dear Diary...sorry, wrong thing...Dear Blog,

For the last two months I've been grounded, restricted from flight duties. Just because of a little problem with vertigo. Seems my inner ear wasn't agreeing with the rest of my senses. So, my flight surgeon grounded me from flying duties until I got better. But today, there's some resolution. With a referral from my flight surgeon, I flew up to another base, Balad, and visited 2 doctors, an Audiologist and an Ear-Nose-and Throat specialist. Both couldn't find anything going on in my head...uh, make that "anything wrong" going on in my head. So I'm sending the flight surgeon their findings and hoping he'll put me back on flight status. We'll see.

So someone asked me, how did I travel up to visit these doctors in Iraq. Okay, it went like this. Since I now work in the battalion "Future Planning Cell" and know most of the flight times and routes, I scheduled to be on a flight from Taji up to Balad. I got on a helicopter at the flight line in Taji with my company. Simple enough. I know where they work.

Then, they flew me 20 minutes northeast and dropped me off at a terminal, known by the amusing name of "Catfish Hotel."

From there, I went outside, sat at a bus stop with a nice wooden, shaded bench, tried to understand the various route maps stapled on the posts, did a slow bake in the 120-degree heat, and finally a 20-passenger Kia bus pulled up. They're driven by either Indian's, Pakistani's, Fillipino's, etc., all contractors. We only stay on base, unless you count the three times that the drivers at another base tried to hijack the solitary soldier onboard. Each time, the soldier drew their weapon, and in no uncertain terms persuaded the driver that they appeared to be going the wrong way. The drivers became quickly convinced and turned around. Of course, these were native Iraqi drivers. We don't use those anymore. Must be their sense of direction which terminated them. No, the buses are safe, most of the time air conditioned, but the drivers don't speak English very well. No matter how many times I asked, "Are you going by the hospital?", different drivers would only shake their heads, no. Even though according to the maps, their route went right by it. Sheeeeeeeeeesh. That's what wore me out the day of my arrival. Lugging a backpack, body armor, and a helmet bag, standing in the heat, completely draining my 1 liter of bottled water, and riding a bus to no where...just like the Beatles song - "He's a real nowhere man, living in a nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody." Dum, dum, de dum, DUMB.

The weather visibility in our part of Iraq has been so poor that helicopter flights are on "Weather Hold." Thus, I'm on vacation. So for past 3 days, I've been living in a basement room (read that, dungeon) shared with the messiest LTC in Iraq, and 7 other empty bunks. I've got a nice lower bunk in a corner complete with a pink sheet hanging from the end to give me a sense of privacy. Who uses pink sheets in Iraq? Only the Army, I guess. Here at the hospital, I get 3 square meals a day, my own room (not really), free bus rides to the big PX (if you can find the right bus stop and route), a nice exercise room with a big screen TV, and an indoor shower. Who could ask for anything more? ...Don't answer that.

Well, I hope you're enjoying your summer. Mine's been memorable. Take lots of pictures. Sorry, I haven't figured out how to read all the Arabic script my blogsite opens up to. Maybe I can send them to Linda, and she can post them.

Much love to you all,

C-M/P/3