Fixing myself up

I'm finally getting things fixed.

Health issues that have been bugging me since my deployment, I'm finally taking care of, well, most of them.  It's only taken tearing my ACL to motivate me.

I injured my left leg while in Mississippi, and I didn't go to the doctor.  I really didn't even tell my chain of command because I wanted to serve, I wanted to do my part.  I wasn't going to let a stupid accident in the barracks keep me from going to Iraq.  I mean, I could walk fine (as long as the incline wasn't too bad), and I could run, sorta.  My knee really didn't swell, but that's the area where the pain manifested itself.  In Iraq, I couldn't run more than 1/2 mile without my leg being sore and my foot going numb during a PT test, but I could play basketball for hours, and run on an elliptical just fine.

After ACL reconstruction last year, my knee itself seemed good only a few months after surgery, which was great, but surprising.  When I started jogging, though, my hamstring gave me issues, and continues to give me issues.  It's like my left leg just isn't aligned properly.  When I stand, the weight goes to the ball of my foot, not my heel. That gnarly callous I have on my right heel definitely isn't there on my left foot, and my work boots wear differently. Right now I'm just taking a big time NSAID, and it's helped a LOT, but like other things, it seems like a temporary fix to a permanent problem.  We'll see where it goes, but I'm optimistic for the first time in a long time.

Sometime during the deployment, a lump formed on the back of my head.  I stopped 'Biccing' my head (shaving it bald with 'Bic' razors) at that point, but I don't really remember the date.  Hopefully this week, after only 7 1/2 years, it will be removed and I'll finally have some clue what it was, and maybe even what caused it to form.  It's never really hurt, just more of an annoyance because people see it and ask what it is, and I have no idea.  Also an annoyance because when I cut my hair, I never really knew if I was cutting the hair right in that area, or if I'd have a long tuft around it.  I like 'high and tight' hair cuts, and it's RIGHT at that level that it makes it tough to cut them myself.

I haven't really been able to breathe since I've been home, not through my nose.  I mean, my nose was never really a turbine, or anything, but it seems like I just can't get full breaths through my nose, leading to me yawning, or simply breathing through my mouth.  It's made sleeping terrible, because I just stop breathing. The VA got me a CPAP after a sleep study.  They said it wasn't the worst case they'd seen by far, but it was bad.  The CPAP, though, bugs the hell out of me because while it may seem to help for a week or two, it then doesn't seem to be anything more than an annoyance which leads to a love/hate relationship with it.  I've only chucked it a few times.  Right now I'm using BreatheRight strips, but they work minimally to really help me breathe.  The days that I have 1 1/2 nostrils are the good days.

And then there are the issues that may linger.  I never got to even shoot at someone over there, and never got shot at or blown up, personally. But it's still sobering when you drive by an area, and it blows up 10 seconds later, two trucks behind you.  I'm the type of person who can't let things like that go, that wishes I could have done anything to keep it from happening.  They lived, and fully recovered, as far as I know, but it was close to not working out that way.  Or watching a vehicle that your buddies were just in burn to the ground, just being thankful that they got out.

I think with the rise of ISIS (at least part of which was helped by parts of the US government as an anti Syrian government force) and other world events, we'll probably be back in the Middle East.  I think in ten years or less, we could be dealing with problems inside our own borders, based on ideologies that democratic politicians seem to enjoy supporting (radical Islam, open borders, race baiting, class warfare, communist agitators) and the groups that they've spurned in recent years (Israel, European allies, Christians worldwide).

I'd like to be useful when these times come, so I guess I have a lot of work to do to get back in somewhat decent shape.