Despite the cold (and a fair amount of whining by yours truly), I managed to do this on the APFT:
That's a 308/300, or better than what the Army considers to be prime fitness (it'll be recorded as a 300 in my records; just like there's no such thing as an A+, there's no such thing as better than the maximum score). Since our brigade command sergeant major (highest enlisted Soldier in the brigade) was here from Ft. Hood, my perfect score got me one of these:
This is our brigade coin, which I was supposed to be awarded during morning formation yesterday. Unfortunately, when they called my name, I wasn't there, because I was at the hospital seeing one of our Soldiers. He had an ACL repair last week and ended up developing a clot (DVT, or deep vein thrombosis) in his leg, which traveled to his lung (forming a pulmonary embolus, or PE). He's doing fine now, but he's been in and out of the ER since the day after his surgery. He first went in with shortness of breath and a CT (cat scan) was negative for PE. So he was sent home; four days later, he was again short of breath, and this time, they did find a clot in his lungs. It wasn't large, but they did admit him for observation and to teach him how to take the medications to treat it (one week of a blood-thinner shot and six months of a blood-thinner pill). Unfortunately, the day after he was discharged from the hospital, he was back in the ER. He followed up with the orthopedic surgeon who did his ACL repair and ended up coughing up a little blood, which freaked out the surgeon and he called for an ambulance. Again, he's fine. I explained to him that while he's on these blood thinners, he might cough up a little blood every once in a while, or he might get nosebleeds, or might bruise easily, and unless he's actively bleeding, there's no need for alarm.
The biggest learning experience of this (for me) was learning how to be an intermediate between the doctors at the hospital and the Soldiers and officers of my battalion. I obviously speak 'doctor', but this Soldier doesn't, and neither does his company commander or first sergeant. They're understandably protective of their Soldier and were very upset about all of this back-and-forth to the ER, thinking that it meant that he wasn't getting adequate care from the hospital. So I talked to his doctors, found out the whole story, and explained things to the Soldier, his commander, and his first sergeant in a way that (I hope) calmed everyone down.
Of course, after all of this, I hopped on a plane for Atlanta (okay, there was some time between; I finished up the workday yesterday, went home, studied, got up this morning, went running, gave blood, and then hopped on a plane for Atlanta), because I have my Certification of Knowledge in Tropical Medicine exam tomorrow, the first activity of American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Since arriving at the hotel, all I've done is sit and go through my flashcards (I'll put up a picture of the stack of flashcards tomorrow, if I remember). I did have a nice view, though:
I'm on the 23rd floor of the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, which is downtown (and only a couple of blocks from a MARTA station, so I didn't have to spring for a cab from the airport). After my exam tomorrow (if I have any energy) and all day Sunday, I'm going to explore Atlanta, since I haven't been here (airport doesn't count) since my summer at Emory in college (2004... Man, time flies). And then I'll be spending my time conferencing and preparing for my presentation. More about that later.
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