BT, you old softie!

(me, too...)

I was on med hold for an extended time several years ago... (see reason below, or SKIP IT and just scroll down to the best (well, maybe!) "tour" I had in a bit under 23 years' active..

Just at the end of a three-year stint in the Pentagon, I had a fairly minor knee surgery (arthroscopic repair of the medial meniscus cartilege)-- no great big deal, (I'd had the other knee done the same way) except that this time, the third day at home after surgery, while on convalescent leave, I managed to stumble going down a flight of stairs, going into a full squat on my "new" knee, and making it about the size of a bowling ball within about three hours. Dumb. Hurt like a M***********. Well, the docs extended the convalescent leave, and after return to duty, sent me to physical therapy. After just a few days of getting in the family car in the morning and riding about a mile to where I met the van pool van, and climbing up into the van (there was an 18 inch-or-so difference between the ground and step into the van) riding about 25 miles in a cramped seat, getting out of the van, then hobbling about 1/2 mile on crutches, two hours later hiking back to the same place where I left the van, getting on a shuttle bus to the Rader Clinic at Fort Myer, for PT, then the bus again, the hike again, til my duty day was done at 1600, then hike, van, commute to van stop, wait for ride home. Needless to say, I lasted just a few days when I really just wanted to kill something. Did I mention it was December?
So, my doc at Walter Reed and sent me to PT at DeWitt Army Hospital, Fort Belvoir, only about fifteen miles from home. No vans or buses. My mid-morning PT appointments avoided the "rush hour"; use of the family car meant a lot less physical discomfort (unlike with the wait, van, hike, bus, hike, work, hike, van, wait, get home routine all the time feeling like the knee had JUST been parked upon by a deuce and a half, right before I tried to do a graceful high jump in a miniskirt. Sorry about that dreadful image, - that's the best analogy I can offer. Absurdly long story cut short, (not really!) I was assigned on Med Hold at DeWitt to make my life a lot longer (an amputation was beginning to look like a GREAT idea) and after the PTgoblins watched me make like I though I was trying to make thighs like Schwarzenegger's, and eventually riding a stationary bike in such a way that the Tour de France looked like a windsprint, I'd make myself a usable body working in the hospital, doing my (then)71Lima (Admin NCO) thing.
It was a long stay, three years. I developed a cataract after less than two months, and within two weeks of noticing I had lost a bit of visual acuity in one eye, I was completely blind on that side. It took over six months to get scheduled for surgery to correct the blindness.

Anyway..... after all the above, and with the Hospital all Administratively ship-shape,
I was offered the opportunity to help with medical records of New Occupants of the Newborn Nursery.
I told the OIC, a sweetheart of a nurse, that I would help in way I could, she'd allow, hands on, from feeding/burping to changing diapers to bathing to taking vital signs to helping draw blood, assisting in curcimcisions and all this on the most precious little end-items of human nomenclature ever created. I was there for several months, and during my day shift work, "I" had a total of 89 little dreamboats.

I'd have not been happier as Command Sergeant Major of the freakin' Universe.

Windy "Papa"
(w/6pk "abs")