Air Mishap #4

As you may know from my previous ‘mishaps’, I have my private pilots license.  So one night while still in training in the early 1990’s, me and my flight instructor Blaine went out to practice night flying.  Among many other requirements, you have to have a certain amount of hours of night flight before you can get your license.  Well it was a nice clear evening and we flew out of my hometown of Madison, WI down to the airport in Rockford, IL to do some touch-and-goes and other air-work in the area.

After a couple hours it was time to head back to Madison.  The airport there is a Class C airport, meaning it is relatively large, it has a tower, and you have to get permission to enter the airspace.  Once you tell them your intentions (to land in our case) the tower directs you on where to go, how fast, etc.  Well like at any large airport there are always several planes wanting to land at any given time, so it is the tower’s job to keep the planes away from each other and in line to land with enough separation so there are no mishaps and they can all get down in a safe, orderly fashion. 

So we get our instructions to enter the airspace, go on a certain heading, follow a certain plane in the pattern and we will be #2 for landing behind that plane.  We are following the assigned airplane and eventually he lands and then it is our turn and we are on the final to land.  This is probably my 5^th flight ever at most so I am still pretty green and did not know this fairly large airport that well yet.  Also, we are a very small plane in a sea of planes ranging from 2-seaters like ours all the way up to jumbo jets flying in from all over the country.

So we’re drifting over the runway and I am lining it up as best as I can and I cut the power and get her on the ground with an okay landing.  I am proudly rolling down the runway when all of a sudden all hell breaks loose!  I did not slow the plane down fast enough in time to get off the runway and on to the normal taxiway to the right that all the small private planes use, so there I was still on the main runway with a HUGE Northwest airliner right on my ass!  Blaine had assumed I was turning off on that taxiway so when I rolled past it he just said:  “Uh oh.” 

Our entire plane was enshrouded in an impossibly blinding white light that seemed like the bright lights from heaven itself as the jumbo jet that was landing right behind us was on us.  Luckily the pilot realized in time that we were still on the runway and he aborted their landing and pulled up before hitting us.  All the while this was happening the tower was frantically screaming through the radio at us to “Get off the runway!!”.

I looked back and in the middle of all that bright light I saw the wheels of the jet lifting up behind us as the plane swooped up and over us and took off again into the night.  I almost caused a major airline disaster and definitely caused a lot of confused people on the plane to be wondering what the hell was happening.  In addition to the scare, they were going to be late as they had to take off again, go around, re-enter the flight pattern and then land which can take 15 minutes for a large airplane.

Well, we got off on the next taxiway and headed back to our little hanger as it was dawning on me what had just happened.  As me and Homer Simpson are apt to do, I cannot help but believe that it was everybody else’s fault but mine.  The tower never should have left that small of a window for a little plane like ours to land in with that large plane right behind us…there should have been more separation.  And my instructor should have been more aware of my inexperience and should have made sure our plane was braking enough (there are dual foot pedals on each side of the plane as well as dual steering wheels) so that we could have gotten off the runway in time.  How was I to know we had to get off on that taxiway?  Seriously though I was the pilot so of course it was my fault.  But it was a lesson well learned…no jacking around, get off the runway as soon as possible. 

Surgery follow-up note...

Well as of last night it had been 10 days since the nose surgery and things were going well.  The pain was reduced to just that numb feeling you get when you inadvertently try and open a door with your nose or get punched right square in the schnozz.  Both of which suck, but you know it’s going to get better and does not require any medical attention.  So my nose was still swollen and will be for a month, but on the mend, looking nice and straight, and the crusty flow of dried blood and crud was starting to diminish with each daily Q-tip swabbing of peroxide.  My only complaint was the stitches left behind.  When I went in a week after the surgery for the follow-up appointment I was told that they would slowly dissolve over time, and to just ignore them. 

That is much easier said then done.  There is like a mile of stitching up in there and as it decays and comes loose in your nose it tickles and is constantly making me sneeze.  Not to mention the smell.  As the stitching thread that looks like fishing monofilament decays, it is coated with dried blood and slime and it just reeks.  It kind of smells like a very old damp washcloth that has been sitting in the bottom of a mop bucket for a few weeks.  With every inhale I can smell it and it’s hard to ignore.  

So as you can imagine, with both the tickling and the smell there is a huge urge to pick at this stuff and try to ‘help’ it the f*ck out of my nose.  All week little pieces ranging from a millimeter to a centimeter long have been showing themselves within reach, and despite warnings not to from my doctor I have been yanking them out.  Well last night I was going to bed and I felt the damn tickling and looked in the mirror and sure enough there was a thread hanging in there.  So I gave it a little tug and it came loose, but in doing so it pulled another long thread out.  One end was hanging about a centimeter out of my nose, and who knows how far up the other end was.

I gave it a little tug…nothing.  So I closed my eyes and gave a huge tug.  OUCH!!  It didn’t come free, but my eyes stung with tears, blood started pouring out of my nose, and I must have yanked a nerve because it hurt from way in the back of my nose all the way down through the roof of my mouth to my front top teeth.  Goddammit!  First I stuffed a bunch of tissue up there and eventually got the blood to stop.  Then I took a scissors and cut the part of the thread off that I could see hanging out.  Then I took some acetaphetamine and tried to go to sleep, but the pain was intense.

I was worried that I had done some permanent damage or ruined the surgery, so I called this morning and made an emergency appointment.  When I got there I told the doctor what I had done and he just shook his head, chuckled, and said he was sure that I didn’t do anything serious but he would take a look.  He poked around, removed a bunch of dried blood and more stitching, gave me another prescription of vicodin for the pain (my two front teeth are still numb), and told me there was no real damage done but to not do that again.  Lesson learned:  no matter what you do, do not yank at stuff hanging out of your nose that a doctor put there because I guess it’s there for a reason.

Why you shouldn't try to talk in the recovery room after surgery...

I have played soccer for much of my life, from a little kid growing up in upstate New York all the way up into my 30's when I moved back to Minneapolis, MN.  I eventually forced myself to quit however as soccer took it's toll on just about every part of my body from the waist down:  arthritis in my left ankle from spraining it countless times, bone spur in my right foot, torn meniscus in my right knee, ruptured hamstring, torn labrum in my right hip, vericose veins...and yes one of my top two 'getting-nailed-in-the junk' stories of all-time.  I was at soccer practice and turned around just in time to catch a direct high-speed shot from a fellow team-mate right to the groin.  I layed there gasping for air and writhing in pain for about 5 minutes, trying to decide if this one was worse than the time I was on my 10-speed bike, going down a huge hill on my paper-route peddling as fast as I could when suddenly the chain came off and I fell flush on the crossbar at high-speed.  I could not seem to regain the peddles, and so just riding on my nuts I guided the bike into the ditch in front of a house, tipped over and layed there moaning until eventually a lady came out of the house and offered her assistance.  I told her I just wanted to lay there for a few more minutes and then I would be on my way.

I digress...painfully.  But anyways, out of all of my soccer injuries probably the most dramatic one took place above the waist.  I was in 10th grade playing for a city-league team in Waukesha, WI when I went up for a header along with a guy from the other team named 'Tank'.  I got to the ball first and sent it flying at the same time that he got to my nose and sent it flying, moving it an inch or two to my right while it exploded with blood.  Ever since then I have had a hard time breathing out of my right nostril, but I just ignored it until it seemed to have gotten worse in the last year or so and my poor wife Nadia was complaining of the snoring.

I never go to the doctor, but since we were going to meet our massive insurance deductible this year anyways with the birth of our son Jack in August, I decided to get the nose taken care of.  I had deviated septum surgery last March, but it didn't work.  The right side was still slightly collapsed and not getting in nearly as much air as the other side.  Upon their suggestion I waited and waited to see if it would finish healing and correct itself over time, but it didn't.  So I went to another specialist, a Dr. Peter Hilger who is supposed to be 'The Best'.  In addition to being a professor at the University of Minnesota, he is a plastic surgeon that people fly in from all over the country to see.  We met, he took a look and recommended I have further surgery to fix it for good.  He told me I needed Septoplasty, Vestibular Stenosis repair, and possible ear cart graft or a graft from a cadaver.

Yep, there was a good chance he was going to have to either take a chunk out of my ear to rebuild my septum, or a chunk from a dead guy.  I told him I liked my ear just the way it was and that I would prefer he use the dead guy, so he said he would try and accomodate me.  As it turned out, in the end he did not need to do either as there was enough junk left in my nose to rebuild it with that, so that was cool.  But one of the things he did do though was slit the thin part of the nose between the two nostrils, and then pull the outside part of my nose up and over the inside part so that he could expose and get at the insides...yikes.

So yeah Nadia took me to the surgery center this past Monday to get my nose hopefully fixed once and for all.  Part of the pre-op procedure is to meet with the anesthesiologist.  He comes in, smiles, shakes your hand and tells you all the things he is going to give to you to make it painless.  Seems like a cool job and I wished I had it.  My oldest friend Cire Wonhsak is an anesthesiologist and he loves it.  Anyways, besides the general anesthesia he informs me that they will be using cocaine topically in my nose.  Really??  That seemed ironic to me, as I mention to him that I bet a few of their nose patients are coming in for specifally that reason -- to undue the damage that cocaine can do to a nose.

So a few hours later after the surgery (it is a 2 1/2 hour procedure) I find myself in the recovery room blind.  What's happening?  Why can't I see?  Nadia is there and she tells me I have ice packs over my eyes and nose.  Oh, okay.  I am extremely groggy and I do not remember much, but Nadia filled in the blanks later.  Apparently the nurse and her were going over my follow-up medications...the antibiotics and painkillers I would need and I was laying there listening.  Nadia tells me that at this point I decided to try and be funny and I asked the nurse if they were going to be prescribing me some follow-up cocaine.  "Wait, what?  No?  Why not, is that still illegal in this state?"  The lady sighed and Nadia laughed nervously as she tried to shut me up, but I persisted:  "Are you sure, because I think I know a guy who might know a guy...his name is Bob, the second guy, and I could probably get the first guy to try and track him down if you think it would be helpful."

Nadia finally got me to shut up and I barely remember any of that, but she told me about it later while rolling her eyes.  In reality, I do not even know any drug dealers named Bob.  So if there are any of you out there, I am sorry.  I might have implicated you to the staff at the surgery center in Edina, so you may want to lay low for a few days.  And I learned my lesson -- do not say anything you don't have to in the recovery room and for godsakes do not try and be funny.

Go Pack Go...away please

Okay, I am going to preface this story with the fact that I am a Minnesota Viking season ticket holder and I love the Vikes.  I was born in Minnesota, have been a Viking fan since birth, and therefore despise their state border-rivals the Green Bay Packers.  I always have, always will.  In addition, my beautiful wife Nadia is perfect in every respect EXCEPT she has one glaring flaw:  she is a huge Green Bay Packer fan.  Ouch.  It sucks, but what can you do?  I will tell you what I can do...I can try and steer my 2 year old daughter Autumn and my 3 month old son Jack away from the dark side and ensure that they become Viking fans.  I have no doubt that I will succeed as failure is not an option, but the very notion that either one of them could ever turn out to be a Packer fan gnaws at the back of my brain like an insidious parasite and occasionally keeps me awake at night.

Anyways, it has been so hectic around here lately with a newborn and a toddler that I have not even had time to think about what to get Nadia for Christmas this year.  So yesterday I happen to hear about the Green Bay Packer public “stock” offering.  For the 5th time in this football team's history since 1923 the Packers are offering up public stock in the team.  A quarter of a million shares this time, as they are trying to raise money for stadium renovations.  I do a little research.  It is not real stock.  It is basically just a souvenir item.  A stupid 8x12 inch piece of green paper that says “Green Bay Packers” on it.  It can’t be traded, can’t be transferred, can’t be sold.  Completely utterly worthless.  But Nadia will love it.   So I check the price.  $250 plus a $25 handling fee.  Are you f*cking kidding me?  I am not spending that kind of cash on a piece of paper.  Then I think about it.  I love her...I have no other good ideas at the moment...it will get me huge points...and I can easily spend $275 a month on groceries, and/or beer for myself if I put my mind to it, so I suppose I can spring that amount of dough for her Christmas present no matter how silly I may think it is.  I bust out the credit card and buy her the damn Packer stock.

Then a few hours later on the way home from work she happily tells me:  “Guess what?  Me and Laura (her sister) bought each other Packer stock today for our Christmas present to each other!”

The Sneaky Sweets household now owns $550 worth of Packer “stock”.  This can’t be happening.  So I spent an hour on the phone on hold last night trying to return the one I bought.  The whole time while on hold having to listen to Packer play-by-play highlights of last year’s Super Bowl victory, in between bouts of that goddamn “Go Pack Go!” chant they do at their stadium.  (Yes, I have been to Lambeau Field...past Christmas presents have been Packer tickets.)  Eventually some Green Bay chick gets on the line, listens to my story, and tells me to hold please.  Ten more minutes of Packer highlights and chanting.  Finally she comes back and tells me she will have her supervisor call me back in exactly 2 hours.  Then she actually says to me:  “Go Pack go!” and hangs up.  It is 7pm.  I wait till 9pm...nothing.

So I call the b*stards back this morning and sit on hold again with the “Go Pack Go!” chant incessantly permeating my skull until another Green Bay chick comes on the line.  She listens to my story and tells me to hold please while she consults with her supervisor.  I wait the mandatory 10 minutes while pounding the phone on my forehead.  Then she comes back and tells me she will send the information on to another department.  What does that mean?  Is this really going to happen?  Will I get some kind of confirmation#?  An email?  A phone call to let me know my order was cancelled?  She tells me to hold please while she checks on this with her imaginary supervisor.

Ten minutes later she returns to tell me they do not have the authority to cancel it in her department, but she will send it to the department that does and they should be able to cancel it.  Again, how will I know if this is really going to happen?  She tells me I have to wait and to watch my credit card statements to see if the refund goes through.  There will be no confirmation email.  No phone calls.  No promises.  I just have to hope it happens.  But then before she hangs up she too says to me:  “Go Pack go!”  So I have that goin' for me, which is nice.