Narrative
I woke up scared, not knowing where I was. Tubes, wires, and needles littered my body. Pulling and scratching at the foreign objects, I tried to free myself from the physical bondage. Immediately a voice called to me. It sounded as though it was coming from across a dream, but as she spoke again and again I realized that I was in neither bondage nor a dream. I was in Balboa Navel Medical Center’s Intensive Care Unit. The nurse asked if I was ok but all I could say was “Get this damn thing off of my face”. She responded instantly by removing the oxygen mask. While placing a small tube in my nose, she asked if I had any pain, and of course I was in agonizing pain. It was the type of pain you would not wish on your worse enemy. She said for me to rate it on a scale of one to ten. All I could think was, “One to ten?!” ”My head was just sliced open and more brain was removed from it then it seems you could possibly have inside your entire skull, where do you think my pain level is?”, but my exhausted body could utter the number ten. In less time then it took to realize where I was, I had the cool ecstasy of morphine flowing through my veins. She asked again how I felt, but before speaking another word, I slipped a . . .
This wasn’t the first Boot Pilot to loose control of an aircraft and we knew it wouldn’t be the last, but we didn’t know it would happen again so soon. My brain had actually grown too large for my skull so it found its way into my spinal canal. I of my head, which was done because of my concussion, showed that I had a brain disease called Arnold-Chiari Malformation I. There, by clogging the flow of cerebral spinal fluid, it caused yet another disease called Syringomyelia. He informed us that the Commanding Officer was driving in later that day to fly the Huey out to Yuma. It all seemed like a dream or a bad nightmare, but it wasn’t. which was an hour south of the base I was stationed on. Within the hour the Doctor came to my room to inform me of the situation. She gave me some medication and left to find the doctor. With a some what of a calm head I loaded my equipment into the Huey. My feet slipped from under me as I reached for a hand hold.
Common topics in this essay:
Boot Pilot, Care Unit, Yuma Arizona, Balboa NMCSD, Huey Soon, Moment Life, Marines Gunny, Syringomyelia Syringomyelia, MRI X-Rays, Huey Cobra, flight line, scale ten, disease called, equipment huey, |
Acceptance Essays
