Under Pressure

 So, There I was.....Sitting Alert at Osan AB Korea.  The 18TFW (Tactical Fighter Wing) had the responsibility for providing Air Defense Protection for Reconnaissance  assets in Korea.  In English, we (the South Koreans and the Americans) had lots of aircraft flying along the border of North Korea watching "Things".  I guess some lessons from the Korean War such as Surprise were still fresh in some minds.  Our job was to protect those assets if Uncle Kim decided to interfere.  Since the areas where those assets flew was very close to the DMZ and he had every right to fly on his side thereof, things could get spooky very quickly.  Hence, we had the requirement to be airborne within 5 minutes of the scramble klaxon going off.  Which sounds like a pretty long time, and would be if we sat in the jets, but that would get pretty old 24/7 for the week each team was assigned.  

So, the klaxon would go off, the three pilots, 2 plus spare, would jump in the truck, race to the revetments, a couple hundred yards away. The crew chief would have the Auxiliary power Unit started, we would climb the boarding ladder and as we got to the top, reach in and move the right throttle to idle, to begin the start.  While that was spinning up, we jump in.  The Crew chief would climb up behind us and grab the parachute straps and plug them in to our harness as we were monitoring the engine and turning equipment on.  As soon as he had us strapped in, he went down the ladder, took it away and we started the left engine.  As soon as that was at idle, the chocks out signal was given and we'd start taxiing to the runway.  At this point, we'd contact our control and pray for a specific code word.  My prayer was always, "Lord, I don't feel a particular need to be a hero today, but if you do, please don't let me screw it up."

Fortunately, the first half of that was answered for me every time.  (And we scrambled fairly often, mostly to test procedures and crews.  Mostly)

Get to the runway, stroke the jet into Afterburner, a couple of thousand feet later, we're airborne, gear's up, burners still cooking and we're level about 10 feet above the runway.  At the end of the runway, we're above 500 knots and we'd do a 4 G pull to 60 degrees nose high holding that until we got into the 40's.  Since we're going 540 now and a climbing at 60 degrees (2' up for 1' forward) that works out to about 60,000' of travel.  Or about 1.1 minutes to altitude.

Exciting?  Why yes, quite.  

And we got to do it quite often. 

But...And this brings us around to the theme of this post.  The cabin pressure changes could be quite "fun" if you had even the slightest sinus congestion.  Fun, of course, if you're into masochism.  On the ground, you might not even know you had ANY congestion.  And there might not be any warning of it, until it hit.  I had that happen on a practice scramble at about 45K', nothing until I got to that height, then BANG someone drove a nail through my head.  I rolled the jet and pulled the nose back down and headed to lower altitude.  Again, going through 45K, the pain went away.  RTB'd and went to the flight surgeon after landing.  After that, I never flew without a bottle of Afrin in my shoulder pencil pocket.

So, the school of hard knocks has taught me a lot about sinuses.  Which was good, as a week ago, Sunday, I was writing my normal Monday post when I started feeling pressure under my right eye.  Ahh, Crap, I'm getting a sinus infection.  Call the Doctor's office first thing the next morning and they worked me in.  Unfortunately, in this day and age, anything with a temperature, coughing and runny nose, AKA my symptoms, gets the "special" treatment.  

"Call us when you arrive, but remain in your car."  So, I do.  Get temp taken, BP and pulse read, and a Covid Nasal Swab.  (Always the highlight of my day.).  "Stay in the vehicle and the Doc will be out there as soon as the test results are back."  Fairly soon after she leaves, I feel my nose running, so grab a tissue and blow it.  Tissue comes back bright red with blood. This is a new symptom. The Doc comes out, takes a look at me says I've got a bloody nose.  

Yes, Beans, I managed to bite my tongue at that point (figuratively).

But, he also confirms the sinus infection and prescribes an antibiotic to treat it.  And the bloody nose should go away shortly.  The rest of the day, I'm reaching for tissue every couple of minutes .  All come back bloody.  Finally, about 4,Mrs. J advises me to call the Doctor.  I do.  He tells me to go to the ER.

Well...That got my attention.

So we do.  Relay the story several times as I go higher and higher in the ER chain of command.  Finally a nurse practitioner comes in.  Asks me what meds I'm on.  As the list of meds I'm NOT on is shorter, I have a laminated card with what I take, how often and dose size in my wallet.  I hand that to her and she starts reading it.  

"OK, you're on X, Y, and Z.  All three are blood thinners.  Why?"

I relate why my Doctor has prescribed them (AFIB, primarily).  She says, "OK, had any problem recently?"

"Nope"

"OK, Here's the plan, we're going to try to stop the bleeding with a nasal clamp.  Then we're going to take you off the blood thinners for 48 hours. Then you need to see your Doctor about starting them up again or any change in meds or doses."

Sounds like a plan.

 

Put the nasal clip on.  For the next 4 hours, they'd check on me frequently and every time they checked on me and took it off, Blood River started flowing again.  Finally, the nurse practitioner comes back in and says we need a new plan.

I had been thinking the same thing for quite a while by then.

"We're going to roll up a gauze pad, saturate it with Afrin, and shove it into your nose." (Actual words, I was beginning to like her and trust her now.)

Yay!

"Then you're going to see an ENT Doc tomorrow first thing.

So, that's what they do.

It didn't work completely, but the blood flow was reduced quite a bit.  (I could get 2 maybe 3 nose blows from a tissue before it was saturated.).  I spend the night upright in my easy chair dozing.

See the ENT guy the next morning.  He asks what's been happening.  I tell him "I think I've got a ruptured blood vessel in my nose from blowing it.  I think I've also got a Sinus Infection."

"How do you know about sinuses?"

I told him the same story I told you at the beginning of this post. That got us started on talking about solving my problem.  His primary answer? Never, ever, blow your nose when you've got sinus problems.  It over pressurizes an already weakened sinus.  Dab your nose instead. Oh, and he recommended I keep a bottle of Afrin handy.

I had one within 15 minutes of leaving his office.

And this was also when I had excess time on my hands so used Google Earth to follow the progress of Sarge's Polish/French Friends I commented on a few days ago.

And now, as Paul Harvey was wont to say "You know the REST of the story."