What a week!

It has certainly been an interesting week and a half since my last post. Let me fill you in.

The morning after the golfing extravaganza I awoke with a sore throat. I knew right away that I was going to get sick, I don't get sick often. Thankfully I didn't have to work that night so I tried to relax as best I could, drinking water and taking my multivitamin, hoping that I would beat this one out. Little did I know that my efforts never would have a chance to fight this one into submission; I began to run a fever.

At first I was just generally miserable: sore throat, myalgia, malaise, and fever. The fever was keeping me up all night and I was popping acetaminophen like candy, but the fever was getting the best of me and eventually it shot up over 103 at which point I decided it was time to get seen and get some antibiotics. The doctor saw Strep Throat and so I grumbled and started taking amoxicillin. I have had this before and at least I knew the antibiotics would help me kick it fast and I would be back to work in a couple days. I assumed too much.

Just a day after starting the amoxicillin I noticed that my throat was actually getting worse and I couldn't hardly speak with such swollen glands. I hadn't eaten in four days now and I was beginning to feel weak, ready to submit to this horrible monster. My fever was going down but the swelling was more prominent than ever, I couldn't open my mouth more than a few centimeters, and as a rather peculiar side effect to the infection, my salivary glands were on overdrive. I was paralyzed, fever ridden, and drooling; time to see the doctor again.

The diagnosis this time was clear: Peritonsillar Abscess. I needed to see a ENT specialist and so it looked like I was going to go for a helicopter ride to Balad. We found an accepting physician there and I was put on IV antibiotic therapy before I headed out on the chopper about six hours later.

Then next morning I met with the physician and it was clear that I needed surgery. Four hours later I was put out and under the blade. I came to about an hour later dazed and struggling to get myself into a bed in the ward. I don't remember if I went to sleep or not but I was quite relieved that the swelling that had been in the back of the throat was mostly gone now. I spent the next two days after that on IV antibiotic therapy and on the third day I was discharged. Now I was unto the biggest challenge yet: trying to make it back to home base.

I didn't have my ID card, a uniform, or a weapon, not a great start to get a flight. It was time to get McGyver again. I scrounged around the hospital and assembled a uniform from old Air Force tops and bottoms and found a pair of boots. Lacking the essentials that characterized me as military, I blended in as a civilian as I found my way to the ID card office. After sweet talking the clerk, she assured me that she could get me and ID the next day, I was in business. I had to cajole my way through security to get back into the hospital and the next day I claimed my new ID card.

0400 this morning- I walked my happy butt to the Passenger Terminal at the airfield in my newly assumed identity and carrying my armor and kevlar. No flights to my base, but there was hope that the Army could get me there in a Sherpa. Yes, it's a called a Sherpa flight. I made it to the Sherpa terminal just in time and two hours later I was riding in the small prop plane they call a Sherpa. I am back now and in just a few hours it's back to work, and it feels good. It felt like a month, but I am back to health.

Oh so relieved,
Nick