June 14th -- The Longest Day
His Majesty again felt like sleep was for the weak and a-ged, so a very groggy mommy was up at 6 trying to pack and gather things while I showered my grogginess away for my final outprocessing. First, we all went out for a hearty breakfast to fill them up for their journey back east (with a gentle hint to Ainsley's father that he may have to drive part of the way).
Usual bureaucratic nonsense. But at least we were in an auditorium and could sit down instead of waiting in hour-long lines like we did last year for inprocessing. I had a letter in my UPRG (personnel folder) from the dental office that said they couldn't find my records and they would send them on to my next location. I found this moderately humorous as I had gone to pick up my dental records two weeks ago.
More handshakes and Eddie Garlic-chucks to the shoulders, and AFIT was a thing of the immediate past. Starting work on getting my apartment cleaned up would have been nice, but I had one more shot to get through first.
"You're calm!" the nurse exclaimed, marveling at my 138/64 blood pressure as I checked in. I was just glad I wasn't two hours late getting seen like last time. Figured the IV would be a better bet, to avoid the excrucitorture from last time. Only the nurse couldn't find the vein in my hand, poke poke jab adjust poke sorry try again in a different spot. After twenty minutes waiting on my back (when I think I actually fell asleep) for Dr. Reddy to "finish with a new patient", he came into the room, all chatty because he had seen me on the same flight out to DC over Memorial Day. Small talk about how much studying I had to do, oh, really, where am I going next then, and then they put in the "relaxant" and this time I didn't fight it. Sure, knock me out, what the hell. I don't remember a thing, except suddenly grinding my hips back and forth in pain, as if he had set off a hand grenade the size of a Monopoly game piece in my lower spine. Someone said "don't move your legs too much" and I think someone put more "relaxant" in me. I don't think I opened my eyes through the whole deal. And then I was done. I was wheeled into a recovery room where I snoozed a bit longer until someone told me I was ready to go. I asked to talk to Dr. Reddy about my follow-up care here in Virginia but I can barely remember anything he told me. Drunk and spacey, I bought a bag of Cheeze Nips from a vending machine to soothe my stomach and walked back to my apartment, crashing on the couch with my legs up for about forty-five minutes.
A fire truck woke me up, and I felt good enough for a cup of tea. I had a long night ahead of me, laundry, some cleaning, but mostly separating the to-be-packed from the to-be-Thunderbirded (uniforms, plants, important papers, father's day gifts, road trip CDs, etc.). I ended up throwing a bunch of stuff in the tub as the holding area. The bathroom and bedroom a cluster, I walked over to my hotel room a couple blocks away (where I'd stayed the night I'd arrived in Dayton in May of 05) taking another batch of time to upload some photos, catch SportsCenter and unwind. I turned the light off at 2:30.
Usual bureaucratic nonsense. But at least we were in an auditorium and could sit down instead of waiting in hour-long lines like we did last year for inprocessing. I had a letter in my UPRG (personnel folder) from the dental office that said they couldn't find my records and they would send them on to my next location. I found this moderately humorous as I had gone to pick up my dental records two weeks ago.
More handshakes and Eddie Garlic-chucks to the shoulders, and AFIT was a thing of the immediate past. Starting work on getting my apartment cleaned up would have been nice, but I had one more shot to get through first.
"You're calm!" the nurse exclaimed, marveling at my 138/64 blood pressure as I checked in. I was just glad I wasn't two hours late getting seen like last time. Figured the IV would be a better bet, to avoid the excrucitorture from last time. Only the nurse couldn't find the vein in my hand, poke poke jab adjust poke sorry try again in a different spot. After twenty minutes waiting on my back (when I think I actually fell asleep) for Dr. Reddy to "finish with a new patient", he came into the room, all chatty because he had seen me on the same flight out to DC over Memorial Day. Small talk about how much studying I had to do, oh, really, where am I going next then, and then they put in the "relaxant" and this time I didn't fight it. Sure, knock me out, what the hell. I don't remember a thing, except suddenly grinding my hips back and forth in pain, as if he had set off a hand grenade the size of a Monopoly game piece in my lower spine. Someone said "don't move your legs too much" and I think someone put more "relaxant" in me. I don't think I opened my eyes through the whole deal. And then I was done. I was wheeled into a recovery room where I snoozed a bit longer until someone told me I was ready to go. I asked to talk to Dr. Reddy about my follow-up care here in Virginia but I can barely remember anything he told me. Drunk and spacey, I bought a bag of Cheeze Nips from a vending machine to soothe my stomach and walked back to my apartment, crashing on the couch with my legs up for about forty-five minutes.
A fire truck woke me up, and I felt good enough for a cup of tea. I had a long night ahead of me, laundry, some cleaning, but mostly separating the to-be-packed from the to-be-Thunderbirded (uniforms, plants, important papers, father's day gifts, road trip CDs, etc.). I ended up throwing a bunch of stuff in the tub as the holding area. The bathroom and bedroom a cluster, I walked over to my hotel room a couple blocks away (where I'd stayed the night I'd arrived in Dayton in May of 05) taking another batch of time to upload some photos, catch SportsCenter and unwind. I turned the light off at 2:30.
posted by Dan at 9:01 PM
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