The Ordeal

February 1-3, 2011 - There was no way to have prepared for the ordeal we were about to endure.  In our wildest dreams - or nightmares - we could not have imagined the two days it took to get to San Diego from the Washington, DC, area.  Please bear with the length of this story - believe me, living it was longer and harder!

The journey actually had it's start the day before. Daniel was all set on the manifest to be on the flight. All looked good. Then one observant person (Sgt. Liniez) noticed that I had not been included in the flight orders.  They started to say that they would send me on a commercial flight and meet up with Daniel in San Diego. I made it very clear, "Get this fixed!"  After some rear-ends were kicked (I think Sgt. Liniez enjoyed it) and some higher-ups got involved the issue was eventually sorted out.  I think some medical staff and some administrative-types got a very serious talking to.  After the journey was done it was clear that Daniel could not have done it without some help and someone with him.

We would not know the route we would take, the type of aircraft, or the length of the trip until just before we were to get to the flight line.  So, this could be a 10-12 hour trip or a 48-60 hour ordeal.  The latter would be our fate.

The day started with a walk with two suitcases and a carry-on from the Navy Lodge to Daniel's room at 4:15am.  We readied our luggage and the boxes and bags of Daniel's medical items (medical records, supplies, medications, etc.). Daniel was strapped down on a stretcher and eventually placed with some others into a hospital bus.  One of the other amputee wounded warriors we had got to know, Tommy Parker, and his mother were also on the trip with us.  The navy logistics officer for the med-evacs (who was awesome), Lt. Reccardi, told the bus driver, "Bells and whistles, please."  The lights and sirens went on and we started our drive to Andrews Airforce Base.  Rush hour traffic along the DC Beltway, at 65 miles per hour, with everyone getting out of our way and taking notice was, as Reccardi put it, "the least that these heroes deserved".

After a weather related delay, we finally arrived at 9:00am on the flight line to be loaded on to the C-17.  At this point there was some excitement about doing this trip.  Believe me, the novelty wore off real fast!  Daniel's stretcher was placed up on a rack and I was shown to a sideways facing "jumpseat" (so named, I think, because after a couple of hours people would rather jump out of the plane without a parachute than continue sitting on these instruments of torture).  We were told our route: Andrews Airforce Base, somewhere in Louisiana, somewhere in Texas, Travis Airforce Base near San Francisco, and overnight stay there, the next day up to a base in Washington State, then back down to Miramar (San Diego).  Fifteen hours of flight time today and eight to ten hours of flight time the next day.  All the flight time I was to be in a jumpseat and Daniel strapped down in a stretcher. OMG!

To make a long story short (too late, I know): the constant take-offs and landings, the back-and-forth of cold and hot, the lack of food (One boxed meal for the entire trip and I had a really really sore throat and couldn't eat), the noise, the shaking, Daniel's pain and anxiety rising, and his pain meds not given on time made the 15-HOUR flight miserable! We finally arrived at Travis Airforce Base at 9:30pm, westcoast time (15 hours after taking off from the east coast).

Daniel was exhausted, hungry, and hurting.  I was exhausted, hungry, and hurting.  After all that we had gone through we were astonished to learn that Tommy and Daniel, the two non-ambulatory patients, along with the two parents, were going to have to share a room.  They brought the two gurneys up the floor and we waited outside the room for it to be made ready to bring in the gurneys in.  A nurse stepped out, obviously frustrated that she had to make the changes in the room loudly said, "Can't these two just get out and walk to their beds."  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We were all so tired we all just had a good belly laugh. But, our confidence in this place for these seriously wounded marines sank below the floor.  The nurse ended up being Daniel's.  After pleading for getting some pain meds (which were now three hours late) and after some time, she finally comes in she brings a medicine cup full of pills, held them out to him, and said, "Here are your meds."  Daniel and I were in shock.  We were in a new hospital. The nurse had obviously not properly looked at his chart to see that he was an amputee. She didn't tell him what the medications were. We had no way of knowing if they were correct.  We knew that this was against any known hospital policy.  Obviously angry and hurting Daniel kept his composure and just firmly said, "Maam, take these away and come back with the meds and do this properly."  The look on his face, and mine, made it clear that he was serious.  Add to all this: the two parents had to sleep in chairs, they had no food for us (we had not eaten for 12 hours), no doctor came and saw them, they didn't have the equipment or know how to care for urgent/acute/trauma cases, a corpsman said he could help change Daniel's colostomy but didn't have any idea what to do, and no one would look at or treat my extremely sore throat.

After finally settling the boys down I tried to get some sleep.  Not able to sleep, at 2:00am I went down to the emergency room to have my throat looked at.  Go figure ..... had acute strep throat.  I was given some motrin, some throat lozenges, and a shot in the butt of penicillin (the size and consistency of a tablespoon of chunky peanut butter).

The next day, after I had complained about the treatment these young men received, each of the guys was assigned an airforce personnel to be there for them.  They also were assigned better staff (two nurses each) to care for them and they took down a report on all that had happened (there was a bunch of other stuff too - including a hospital cafeteria that was not wheelchair friendly!).  The base leadership did a good job of trying to make things right.  A phone call and apology from the base commander a couple days later was also appreciated.

They got them ready for a noon flight that was to go to Washington state and then back down to Miramar.  We got on the flight line and right up to the plane.  It didn't take too much brain power to figure out that the closed doors on the plane, the lack of any visible flight crew, the scaffolding placed under the wing, a maintenance crew talking and pointing up at the wing, and the confused look on the transport nurse's face, were all saying that someone forgot to tell us that the plane was not able to fly today and we were spending another day at this hell-hole!  We puttered around the hospital for the day and the next morning.  Daniel ate a lot, I still couldn't.

The next day we got to the flight line, the C-17 was ready, and they decided to fly straight to Miramar (especially after our ordeal and the fact that 12 injured men were heading to San Diego and only one to Washington).  This trip was only about an hour.  When we arrived in Miramar the signal was given that before the plane was to be unloaded some "brass" was coming to welcome the guys.  We stopped and in walked two priests, a rabbi, and two sargeant-majors.  - that last sentence begs for a joke to be made :-)

It took 55 horrible hours to get these brave young men from the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda to the Naval Medical Center, San Diego.  That just doesn't seem right!  But we made it, and Daniel is sure to never give one of his sons the name Travis.

Dad