Flight Phyiscal, Part 1.

So here goes my second attempt at describing the day that encompassed my Flight Physical. I¡¦m typing in Word this time, so I should manage to get through it without accidentally deleting the whole post again. Growl.

The alarm ended up being unnecessary, I awoke with a start about 5 minutes before it was supposed to go off. I¡¦d gotten a total of an hour or two of sleep, not the smartest thing, but thanks to hours of icing my head was getting back to normal size. Actually it¡¦s now two three or four days later, and there¡¦s still a pretty decent bruise. I made my way out to the loop where I was picked up by the first of three friends who had been gracious enough to participate in taking me up to Vandenberg AFB, a good hour away, and bringing me back later in the day. A two hour round trip at 5:30 in the morning is a pretty insane favor to ask, these ppl must love me very much. Or maybe they¡¦re masochists. Well, I feel the love anyway. :)

We hit the road, and the trip up was pretty uninteresting for me, given I spent the whole time with my head tilted to the side, trying to balance an ice pack on my forehead. We took a minor wrong turn when we tried to make the 101 to 1 transfer and ended up zipping through the stop sign, across the intersection, down the onramp back onto the 101 again, but we eventually got turned around and going in the right direction again. I was horizontal at the time, I should have been giving better directions. :/ I¡¦d planned to get there a good hour before my appointment, so even though we left 15 minutes later than planned and took our time getting up there, it wasn¡¦t a big deal. There were an absolute ton of cars headed the other direction back towards the 101 from Lompoc, apparently a whole lot of people make that commute. It¡¦s a pretty nice one, compared with sitting on L.A. freeways in some of the world¡¦s longest parking lots.

Around 6:50 we made it to the main gate of Vandenberg AFB, and hung a right into the main Visitor¡¦s Center. Here we waited in a short line to get our pass to get on base, but my name ended up not being on the list, so this became quite a production. The airman behind the desk tried calling the number I was given to call if I had problems getting on base, and of course there was no answer. He then told me to use the lobby phone and try calling every few minutes until I found someone to call up there and vouch for me. We waited a good half hour before I finally got through, and even then it wasn¡¦t the right person, she wasn¡¦t in yet. The person who did pick up was able to call up the visitor¡¦s center desk though, and after a few minutes I cut the now much longer line to ask if I could now get a pass, and they said yes. This of course required the driver¡¦s registration and insurance, which luckily I¡¦d already heard was a requirement and thus had it ready. It was now 7:30 and I was going to be late for my initial appointment, so we hoofed it back to the car and into the base after the guard scrutinized our paperwork.

The base itself was quite neat, reminded me of a very large gated community. I can totally see myself living somewhere like that in the future, the housing all looked very nice. After traveling down California and hanging a right at the large missile, we hung another right onto Utah, and a left onto South Dakota, eventually finding the Flight Medicine building near the end on the right. Gotta love patriotic street names. Here I bid my two friends adieu, as they went off to apparently eventually discover a drive-thru Starbucks which made their whole week.

I hurried into the building and was directed from the front desk down to Public Health at the end of the hall, where I picked up my paperwork. I was then sent back to the front desk where I was brought in by one of the people there, and hurriedly filled out the pages I was supposed to have already done, as the two people who were going to be testing me on various things sat around and looked annoyed. I explained the holdup and why it wasn¡¦t my fault, but it didn¡¦t appear that they cared. Then came a flurry of tests that made up the Tech. portion of my schedule. First they did height, this time putting me at probably a more accurate 5¡¦ 10¡¦¡¦ and 3/5. I then hopped on a scale, although fully clothed, including a sweatshirt and various things like a wallet and keys in my pockets. They subtracted two pounds to compensate, but I¡¦m pretty sure it should have been more like 4. Didn¡¦t matter since I was still only 191, decent poundage under the max. They also did sitting height, and measured the length of your thigh from knee to buttock, both of which are important in deciding what cockpits you can and can not fit into comfortably. Next came a reading aloud test, which they actually seemed quite focused during while listening to me, I¡¦m not really sure what they were looking for, I assume it was just a test to see if you were literate. They took my blood pressure and pulse three different times during all of this, once at rest, once after having me hop on one foot and then the other for a minute or two, and then once two minutes later after the exercise. They did all these measurements by hand, so I doubt the accuracy, and it showed given the wide fluctuations even between the different bp¡¦s that were taken throughout the day.

I was then sent into the hearing test room, which was different from the MEPS version in that the booth was only made for one person instead of six, and the room itself had another door that remained closed during the test, thus making the entire place much more soundproof. I still felt like my own heartbeats and breath were drowning out some of the sounds, so you really had to focus the entire time, even though the test went on for several minutes. I did end up scoring much better than the MEPS version, I assume because people weren¡¦t talking outside the booth or shifting around inside it. Next up came a whole bunch of vision tests, some of which seemed quite strange. I had been told my optometry appointment was later in the day and they would repeat many of the more important tests, so even though they ended up apparently failing me on a couple in the morning, I wasn¡¦t all that worried. The tests consisted of a distant vision test, near vision test, color blindness test, peripheral vision test, and a few others I can¡¦t really describe, where they just blocked your eyes in different ways and had you focus on something else, trying to see if they could create movement in the eye, or see if your eyes randomly shifted around or something, I guess.

I was then sent over to the hospital next door to have a urinalysis done, and then to have blood taken. It was officially more of my own blood than I¡¦d ever seen in my life. I¡¦d say a good eight or so decent sized vials were taken, if not more. She just lined em up beforehand, continuously switched them out all the while leaving the same needle in my arm, and then lined em up on a different table afterwards. It was all sort of reddish brownish looking, very bubbly, not all that attractive. Strangely I felt basically nothing during all this other than the initial sting and burn, I was able to wiggle my fingers throughout, and there wasn¡¦t the same soreness that there was after the MEPS blood test. They acted beforehand like I was probably going to pass out and showed me where I would wake up, and then afterward said I should probably sit still for 10 or 15 minutes until I stopped feeling dizzy, but I literally felt nothing. After a few minutes of watching the cartoons in the waiting area, I decided to stop wasting time and zip on back over to the Flight Medicine building to see what was next.

I was then given an EKG, which was a new experience for me. They put all these little tape things on various parts of my body, and then clipped electrode thingies to them while I lay on a hospital bed type thing. I basically just hung out for a while and then they said I was done, and began the oh so fun process of ripping off the pieces of tape, usually taking a few hairs with them. I then was told to wait in the waiting room for a while until my 10:20 doctor¡¦s appointment. As you can see a good three hours had passed by now, and I was just getting started. The doctor ended up being female which was a first for me, I guess the doctor I was supposed to have was out sick or something. A male airman was present in the room at all times, I guess to make sure that no comfort levels were crossed or something. This was your typical physical with a doctor, where they check your eyes, ears, mouth, extremities, test for range of movement, and all that. I basically ended up repeating every single test I¡¦d done at MEPS during this day, and then some. Eventually came the turn your head and cough aspect, and then a new one for me, the infamous ¡§rectal exam.¡¨ Only thing I¡¦ll say about that is judging by the amount of discomfort, I¡¦m positive my door doesn¡¦t swing that way. She then asked me a few questions about why I wanted to be a Navigator yadda yadda yadda to make sure I wasn¡¦t being forced into it or anything. I asked her about a few of the tests I didn¡¦t do well on in the other room, and she made a note on my schedule to have the optometrist redo those tests.

I was sent next door to Dental, where I was ushered into a room to have x-rays done. Their panoramic machine was broken, so there¡¦s a small chance I might have to come back and have that done another time, which would be kind of lame, but you do what you have to. The bitewing x-ray machine was working however, so I was able to get those done, and they acted like only one or the other was needed, so it shouldn¡¦t be too big a problem. I was then checked over by an actual dentist, to make sure I guess that my dental work was still intact, and there weren¡¦t any foreseeable problems. Everything checked out okay, and he filled out some more of my paperwork and inserted the x-rays, and I was back over to the main building.

Now I was in my main big gap of the day, as I had a 1430 (2:30pm) optometry appointment I had to go to, my last appointment of the day, but it was only about 11:30. I noticed on my chart that I was supposed to have gotten a chest x-ray and hadn¡¦t and asked the front desk about it, and they said that was supposed to be done over at Radiology, which is right next to the Lab where I did my urinalysis and blood work, and they were supposed to send me there afterward. Luckily I noticed, or I probably would have had to come back and get it done another day. I didn¡¦t end up getting to see the completed x-rays which was disappointing, I¡¦ve always found it interesting to be able to say ¡§Hey, that¡¦s my liver!¡¨ and ¡§Hey, that¡¦s my rib!¡¨ and stuff. They had the wrong angle on one of the two positions they took so they had to do it again, but the second time went fine and I was dismissed again. I spent a while wandering around the base after that, checking out the movie theater, laundromat, some of the barracks, and various other amenities. Eventually I realized I was tired and lay out in the sun in front of the original building and took a nap under a tree. I was awoken at one point by a Security Forces guy asking if I was alright, I guess they don¡¦t see too many civilians sleeping under trees in strange positions on base. I assured him I was okay and showed him I had an optometry appointment in a half hour, and he went on his way. I decided to see if I could jump start the process and headed back in to the front desk to check in. Turned out Optometry was back in the other building next door, so I made the thirty yard trek for about the 10th time that day. Luckily these two buildings were the only two I had to report to, otherwise it would have been pretty lame given I had no car.

I arrived at Optometry around 2, but they couldn¡¦t find me on the appointment sheet, so they weren¡¦t entirely sure what tests needed to be done. They went through the typical stuff like figuring out what my exact eyesight was and what prescription would be best for me if I actually wore glasses. Found out that as expected my left eye is 20/20, whereas my right is closer to 20/30. They also did the test for I think glaucoma where they blow air into each of your eyes. It¡¦s actually really cool to watch someone else going through it, since you see their eye blown up huge on the screen as it sits there blinking. I¡¦ve always wanted a huge picture of my eye in perfect quality with no reflection, and that¡¦s pretty much impossible to get. Interestingly enough, I started having trouble with the depth perception test again, so he had me put on a pair of glasses with the prescription he¡¦d just formulated, and I was able to do all of them much easier. I also ended up able to name all of the color blind slide numbers, whereas I was unable to see a few in the dimly lit other room, where the light that was supposed to shine on the book was broken. Those were the two tests the doctor had asked to be repeated, so given I passed them without a problem the second time, I assume all is well. I was then told to hang out in the waiting room, where I ended up sitting around until like 3:15, when they finally ¡§discovered¡¨ my appointment in the schedule, which was actually set for 3:30. The reason for this was because my eyes needed to be dilated an hour in advance of some of the tests, which is why I was told to arrive by 1430.

They immediately put in the drops, but I ended up having to around for another hour (I¡¦d been there since 1400 and it was now 1615) before the doctor finally brought me in. They ended up doing a very minimal amount of tests with my eyes dilated, mostly just having me in this one contraption where they shined a light into my eye from various angles and he looked for something, who knows what, maybe the shape of the eye or cornea or something. He ended up writing a whole lot on my sheet and filling in various sections, which was a bit worrisome because he¡¦d had a decent length conversation with the guy who had done the other optometry tests on me before seeing me, I assume discussing something about the tests I¡¦d passed the second time but not the first. The lamest thing about it was the fact that after he dismissed me and I was on my way back to drop off my package, I couldn¡¦t read any of what he wrote because my eyes were dilated. ƒ¼ Worse yet was the fact that since my optometry appointment took so long, the Public Health room where I started the day was closed, and I had to just drop off my package at the front desk, so I was unable to check in and see if there were any obvious problems that would make the infamous ¡§not qualified¡¨ box be checked on the last page rather than the ¡§qualified¡¨ box.

I decided to call the next morning, and did, but she hadn¡¦t been able to find my package yet, although after I told her where it was she acted like she¡¦d go get it immediately following. She said I should call back in a couple weeks, when all my x-rays, drug tests, and blood work would be complete, and she can give me a more legitimate answer as to whether there were any problems. So the waiting game begins¡K

I ended up having to walk the good 20 minutes out to the main gate from the Flight Medicine building because my third friend (who is also wonderful) had the same problem I did with trying to get on base, even though he gave my name and said he was picking me up due to my eyes getting dilated. Luckily I was able to find my way even when mostly blind, and eventually made it to his car. We stopped by KFC on the way home and downed some chow, as I hadn¡¦t eaten since 5pm the day before due to fasting for some of the tests that had to be done. Eventually we made it home around 6:30 or so, and my especially long day was finally over. I was so tired I ended up hitting the sack at 8pm, and not waking up until 9am the next morning.

Even two days later my eyes were still dilated, although not as significantly as the first day or so. Finally today they¡¦re back to normal, and I¡¦ve resumed my normal course of operations. One more hurdle down, now all I can do is wait. Wait to call and find out the person¡¦s prediction of whether or not I¡¦ll pass, then wait another few weeks to find out if the Surgeon General actually signs off on it, then wait til early February for the biggest news of all. Assuming all the other news is positive, of course.

I think I¡¦ve written enough for the day, more about the process when the time comes.