Wednesday Morning 3am

There are those times when words from a song go round and round in your head. And then there are the other times when the title/words of a song just seem to match your misery.

Yesterday was one of those. Not a Simon and Garfunkel morning – but a Wednesday morning at 0300. It was not the usual screaming fighter jets that woke me up from a dead sleep but the migraine that exploded in my brain which caused a major kink in my plans for the day.

Not being stupid, I took my meds and tried to go back to sleep. I first discovered that it is almost impossible to get 100+ years to a flush toilet in a hurry when it is cold and slippery. Not completely out of the question, but not terribly fun. Nausea? If you didn’t have it before entering a filthy port-a-loo at 0330 you would shortly after.

Now, if you have friends in the medical community and had started accumulating a bucket, pan and tubing for one of the “Ron the Flight Surgeon’s” in room do-it-yourself sink specials then you at least have a basin. Of course, you have to remember where you put the parts (pan) that doesn’t have a hole it in. Failing that, several layers of plastic bags make a good liner.

Why am I telling you this? No good reason except that relatively simple illness/injury/misery that is normally handled in the privacy of one’s own place can assume major proportions when deployed. At Home, vomiting means that you spend some time with your own porcelain bowl. You know when it was last cleaned. You have personal knowledge of the floor, the rug, the sink and your own toothbrush. Deployed* (*college dorms also fall into this category) you are likely to have to go outside and a distance from where you sleep to find a toilet. That toilet is public, shared with others. Sanitation is questionable. 98% of people share their living quarters which means staying in the room and cleaning up later aren’t really an option.

The implications are also significant for the health care system – people vomiting are more likely to seek medical care (flush toilets in a lot of locations and someone else to empty the emesis basin in others).

Me? I live by myself and could be miserable in my own company. Meds kicked in and a good portion of the day was lost to sleep.

Sleeping is good. No pain is even better. Today was good – not even two days worth of built up emails or unreasonable officemates could cause me pain.