And...I'm back. Again, apologies for the long periods of time in between posts. I am now in Columbus, GA stationed at Fort Benning. Annie Bird and I are sitting at Barnes and Noble sucking up the free Internet since I don't have it at the house yet.
Shall I backdate? Whew! We are talking about seven months of time I will crunch in. I think I may just go one month at a time so the posts aren't ridiculous in length.
I think I left off with my ass surgery gone awry. Now let me tell you how fun and charming it is to try to explain to all the people concerned about your well being that you just has ass surgery for hemorrhoids at age 30. The looks, the comments and the questions just warm me. haha! Well, I ended up having to go back in for an additional surgery.....but that will be another story for the March month update.
I headed up to Oregon for Christmas leave, having the brilliant idea that it would probably save me money to just drive up there with my dog and cat rather than fly and have to board them. I dropped off a friend at the airport in Phoenix and took off. Now, when I get on the road, I only stop for gas....that's where I refuel, bathroom, buy a redbull, Starbucks mocha cold coffee, sometimes spicy nacho Doritos and Newports and I hit the road again. What can I say? I am a creature of habit...I just didn't say good habits. These are the only stops I authorize myself so that I can make good time. I made it to San Francisco and decided that was enough for one day. The hotels that allow you multiple pets are not always the best and as I continue my journeys, you will see what I mean. I always choose the Motel 6 which is a prime spot for the dregs of society. I hadn't even made it out of my truck before this lady popped up at my window. To say I was startled was an understatement. I wormed my way out of my door which I only opened six inches.....to not let the noodles escape and also to ensure that she didn't invade my vehicle. She proceeded to follow me to the lobby, hot on my heels, asking questions, reassuring me that motel 6 would let me keep animals.....oh, and ask for money. I managed to disengage myself in order to slip my credit card to the bored looking attendant behind her plexi-glass, barred up window and get my key.
After walking Lelu and hauling all my stuff to include the cat up to the SECOND FLOOR room (why they are always sold out of 1st floor rooms is beyond me....maybe I should check in before midnight), I locked and loaded the 9mil and settled in for the night. But Motel 6 was not having it! Instead, the room downstairs decide to have a rave with doors slamming and hardcore partying going on til about four in the morning. Ike (name of the cat at the time) also decided it was party time and decided to conduct a marathon of sprints around the room. Over my body, under the bed, on the table, everywhere. I think the fumes from all the drugs downstairs adversely affected him into rave mood also. By 7am I had decided that two hours of sleep was more than enough and it was time to hit the road again. The wonderfully odd thing about Motel 6 is that in the wee hours it looks like Walmart on Rollback Tuesdays yet as soon as the sun rises, all the roaches crawl back under rocks.
I went across the street to Shell, conducted my allowed stop ritual and was back on the road. But the fun with Ike would not stop. Apparently the drugs were still in his system because he was tearing around the truck like it was his personal race track. He climbed inside my uniform, which was inside the plastic dryer bag, getting himself trapped in there with his head stuck through the little hole at the top where the hangers go. Finally the road must of lulled both Lelu and Ike to sleep and there was peace for a couple hours. However the road was lulling me to sleep and as I crossed from California to Oregon I began furiously dialing everyone I could think of to keep me awake for the next couple of hours. Briz and Annie pulled through for me and I arrived at Mom and Dad's farm by three that afternoon.
After all the hugs and kisses were exchanged, I excused myself to go outside to smoke and Dad suddenly hollered "NO! Sit down Julie and smoke here!" Mind you, Dad is right behind Mom in the "Julie, quit smoking campaign" and I was a little confused. Annie and Mom looked at me with deer in the headlights look and Uncle Bill was firing up Dad....YEAH JERRY!! So I did what any good daughter should do and sat back down on the couch and lit one up. Mom's face was priceless. I opened every window possible, hung half my body out of the house and tried to enjoy myself. Awkward.....and yes, Mom came to me later and told me to not smoke inside again despite Dad's assurances. hee hee.
We had almost all the family there.....Mary was flying in that night and Briz was going to introduce us to his new bride the next week. Ahhhhhh.....I can't begin to describe how much I LOVE my family.
So that brings me to the beginning of Christmas leave. This may go on in more posts than I thought....but enjoy.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Surgery
Well, I have been here at Fort Huachuca, AZ since mid September. A lot of things have happened since I've been here, but overall I can't complain. I will fill you in on everything, but it might take a while.
I rented a house with a big back yard for my noodle Lelu to run around in. I didn't realize that the yards here have all these little stickers that get stuck in her paws. Not that it slows her down at all....she just runs on three legs til I pull the sticker out.
When I got here, I got assigned to a company where they told me I would be doing all kinds of really cool things. The actual job is pretty nifty, but its almost all civilians there and I ended up doing excel spreadsheets that a private could have done.
About a month into being here, I started feeling weak and lethargic.....I was bleeding a lot. I finally went and got it checked out and the Dr. decided that I needed to have surgery. This is not for the faint of heart....I ended up have a hemorrhoidectomy where they removed three of those bad boys (internally, not externally). They put me under and when I woke up I couldn't feel my entire lower body. Very nifty....until it wore off. I was laying there in the hospital and the pain came.....I had never felt anything like that before in my life. Now I have a high tolerance for pain, but this was crazy. I actually started crying and my friend that was sitting with me called the nurse and she put something in my iv that flushed my face, melted me like a baby and had me babbling all kinds of nonsense. Apparently it was something stronger than morphine. Whatever it was, they kept me nice and juiced up until I left a day and a half later. I can definitely see why people can get addicted to that kind of stuff. When you are in pain and then that morphine high comes along.....ahhhhhhh! They gave me percacet which kept me nice and loopy at home too. I couldn't believe the amount of pain that I was in. Then to make things even better, I have extreme swelling at all the incision sites that do not want to heal. Altogether, I have been at home resting for a month. They actually put me on convalescent leave (go home and recover leave) until December 26th but my company commander wants me back early.....so I head back to work on Monday. I have a follow up appointment December 14th with my Dr. He is the one that will tell me if I have actually healed up yet. I know the swelling hasn't gone away yet, but I doubt I will be doing anything hardcore enough to warrant damage.
I think that may be enough information to satisfy you for now.....maybe more than you wanted to know. hahahah. I will try to write more often and stop being such a slacker about this. Promise.
I rented a house with a big back yard for my noodle Lelu to run around in. I didn't realize that the yards here have all these little stickers that get stuck in her paws. Not that it slows her down at all....she just runs on three legs til I pull the sticker out.
When I got here, I got assigned to a company where they told me I would be doing all kinds of really cool things. The actual job is pretty nifty, but its almost all civilians there and I ended up doing excel spreadsheets that a private could have done.
About a month into being here, I started feeling weak and lethargic.....I was bleeding a lot. I finally went and got it checked out and the Dr. decided that I needed to have surgery. This is not for the faint of heart....I ended up have a hemorrhoidectomy where they removed three of those bad boys (internally, not externally). They put me under and when I woke up I couldn't feel my entire lower body. Very nifty....until it wore off. I was laying there in the hospital and the pain came.....I had never felt anything like that before in my life. Now I have a high tolerance for pain, but this was crazy. I actually started crying and my friend that was sitting with me called the nurse and she put something in my iv that flushed my face, melted me like a baby and had me babbling all kinds of nonsense. Apparently it was something stronger than morphine. Whatever it was, they kept me nice and juiced up until I left a day and a half later. I can definitely see why people can get addicted to that kind of stuff. When you are in pain and then that morphine high comes along.....ahhhhhhh! They gave me percacet which kept me nice and loopy at home too. I couldn't believe the amount of pain that I was in. Then to make things even better, I have extreme swelling at all the incision sites that do not want to heal. Altogether, I have been at home resting for a month. They actually put me on convalescent leave (go home and recover leave) until December 26th but my company commander wants me back early.....so I head back to work on Monday. I have a follow up appointment December 14th with my Dr. He is the one that will tell me if I have actually healed up yet. I know the swelling hasn't gone away yet, but I doubt I will be doing anything hardcore enough to warrant damage.
I think that may be enough information to satisfy you for now.....maybe more than you wanted to know. hahahah. I will try to write more often and stop being such a slacker about this. Promise.
Monday, September 7, 2009
New Butter Bar
I know I have been HORRIBLE about keeping up with this thing, but now that I have more free time I promise I will be better about updating this. I am home in Oregon now for another week then flying back to Georgia to begin my trip to Arizona. I graduated from OCS August 27th with my little butter bar and am now officially a second lieutenant in the Army. I branched Military Intelligence and do my branch training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. I don't start school for several more months so I will just be working there until school starts. I am sure I will have interesting stories to tell about that. I will try to backdate this a little ways and fill you in on some of the interesting things that went on during school. I had WAY too much fun there and have plenty of stories to tell. Anyways, I have too much stuff to do and too little time to do it in so I will write again later. Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
I start school tomorrow!
I don't know how good I am about doing this every day but I'm trying. Where I left off, I was still in processing. Friday we had an early formation in the morning, ate at the DFAC and then Sam, my roommate, and I went back to the room and crashed out til lunch formation. They told us we were heading off to HHC company for OBC. Of course it decided to pour the entire time we were loading our bags onto the bus. We drove about ten minutes to the main side of post and there we were.
We signed in there and then went over the HHC building where all the officer candidates that had been recycled from other companies, the broken ones, the ones that quit and the ones waiting to go to my company. They were filling our heads up with all sorts of advice and rumors and scaring the living crap out of us. If you don't drink enough milk, you can get stress fractures and get kicked out. If you miss a comma in one of the written memorization's, you get kicked out. If you fall back on a run, you get kicked out. Everyone runs at an eight minutes pace or less, if you don't, you get kicked out. If you are caught fraternizing, you get kicked out. This one guy had been there for seven MONTHS! I think he was pretty much full of it and it has been a running joke now between my little group of people that hangs out....YOU WILL BE KICKED OUT! Obviously we have had to establish a rumor patrol.
That night Sam and I were put in a bay with a bunch of other females and they told us we could sleep on some cots. Charming. We found some empty beds though so at least we got to sleep in a bed. Up early in the morning again for a formation. Remember what I told you about the people at HHC now? They have formations in the morning so that people can be assigned details throughout the day. I thought I had got lucky but not so fast....I got to drain oil and gas out of lawn mowers with a bunch of other females. At least I kind of knew what I was doing. Once that was done, more formations, more sitting around and then finally we had a briefing with the 1SG.
He told us about what it would be like, then pretty much released us for the weekend. They told us to move over to our permanent company where we will living for the next 12 weeks.
Sam and I moved our stuff over there and then showered and changed into civilian clothes. We went to a Mexican restaurant and then came back to the barracks.
Saturday we got up around ten or so and went for a run around the track we will be using for our pt test. We made a new friend, Mona who ran with us. She timed us and it looks like we will be fine for our pt test. Came back, showered, changed, went to IHOP and ate. Then we went to see the movie Hangover which was super funny. Then crashed out again.
Which brings me to Sunday. I obviously have internet now...yay! We were up by eight and went on a 3 miler. It was a little intense sunwise today though. We need to run before the sun comes up. A ton of people have moved in and we have 151 people in our class now. Which is great because that way noone gets cut. So we start off with the height and weight tomorrow morning and then fill out a lot of paperwork to kick this thing off. I have duty from 0200 to 0400 which sucks really bad. That is such an ackward time. Wake up is at 445 and formation is at 515. Then our last formation tonight is 2050 so no sleep for poor Julie. lol. I will deal with it though. Nothing too strenous going on tomorrow.
So Georgia is BLAZING hot. I feel constantly dehydrated and burning up. Sam gets a little sweat on her hairline and meanwhile I am pouring sweat...into my eyes, down my back, its ugly I tell you. I think I will come back a good twenty pounds lighter. And then everyone says "this is nothing! wait til August!" Great.
We signed in there and then went over the HHC building where all the officer candidates that had been recycled from other companies, the broken ones, the ones that quit and the ones waiting to go to my company. They were filling our heads up with all sorts of advice and rumors and scaring the living crap out of us. If you don't drink enough milk, you can get stress fractures and get kicked out. If you miss a comma in one of the written memorization's, you get kicked out. If you fall back on a run, you get kicked out. Everyone runs at an eight minutes pace or less, if you don't, you get kicked out. If you are caught fraternizing, you get kicked out. This one guy had been there for seven MONTHS! I think he was pretty much full of it and it has been a running joke now between my little group of people that hangs out....YOU WILL BE KICKED OUT! Obviously we have had to establish a rumor patrol.
That night Sam and I were put in a bay with a bunch of other females and they told us we could sleep on some cots. Charming. We found some empty beds though so at least we got to sleep in a bed. Up early in the morning again for a formation. Remember what I told you about the people at HHC now? They have formations in the morning so that people can be assigned details throughout the day. I thought I had got lucky but not so fast....I got to drain oil and gas out of lawn mowers with a bunch of other females. At least I kind of knew what I was doing. Once that was done, more formations, more sitting around and then finally we had a briefing with the 1SG.
He told us about what it would be like, then pretty much released us for the weekend. They told us to move over to our permanent company where we will living for the next 12 weeks.
Sam and I moved our stuff over there and then showered and changed into civilian clothes. We went to a Mexican restaurant and then came back to the barracks.
Saturday we got up around ten or so and went for a run around the track we will be using for our pt test. We made a new friend, Mona who ran with us. She timed us and it looks like we will be fine for our pt test. Came back, showered, changed, went to IHOP and ate. Then we went to see the movie Hangover which was super funny. Then crashed out again.
Which brings me to Sunday. I obviously have internet now...yay! We were up by eight and went on a 3 miler. It was a little intense sunwise today though. We need to run before the sun comes up. A ton of people have moved in and we have 151 people in our class now. Which is great because that way noone gets cut. So we start off with the height and weight tomorrow morning and then fill out a lot of paperwork to kick this thing off. I have duty from 0200 to 0400 which sucks really bad. That is such an ackward time. Wake up is at 445 and formation is at 515. Then our last formation tonight is 2050 so no sleep for poor Julie. lol. I will deal with it though. Nothing too strenous going on tomorrow.
So Georgia is BLAZING hot. I feel constantly dehydrated and burning up. Sam gets a little sweat on her hairline and meanwhile I am pouring sweat...into my eyes, down my back, its ugly I tell you. I think I will come back a good twenty pounds lighter. And then everyone says "this is nothing! wait til August!" Great.
Another Wednesday
I didn’t write anything yesterday mostly because there is nothing to write. Everything is winding down for me and I am about to head down range. I think we take off tomorrow. Then we are in another holding company until Monday when we finally start school. Yesterday we got our shots and I got one in my butt…the penicillin shot. It still hurts today.
Picked up my glasses and my new ID card then pulled staff duty for two hours. All I did was answer phones and sit at a desk. Today I literally had nothing to do, not that I am complaining at all. I am ready to get going though. It is all the anticipation and everyone telling their stories and what they are expecting and what they heard. I’m just ready to get going and get it over with. It more than likely will not be as bad as I think it is going to be.
During the summer it sounds like they overbook the classes so then they cut people based on their pt score. If you get cut then you have to wait for the next class to start. No pressure right? My recruiter told me I couldn’t drive here which turns out to be not true. I miss my truck and the freedom it brings. Haha. I don’t like relying on anyone else to get me where I need to go. My plan is just to sleep and then get ready to go tomorrow
Picked up my glasses and my new ID card then pulled staff duty for two hours. All I did was answer phones and sit at a desk. Today I literally had nothing to do, not that I am complaining at all. I am ready to get going though. It is all the anticipation and everyone telling their stories and what they are expecting and what they heard. I’m just ready to get going and get it over with. It more than likely will not be as bad as I think it is going to be.
During the summer it sounds like they overbook the classes so then they cut people based on their pt score. If you get cut then you have to wait for the next class to start. No pressure right? My recruiter told me I couldn’t drive here which turns out to be not true. I miss my truck and the freedom it brings. Haha. I don’t like relying on anyone else to get me where I need to go. My plan is just to sleep and then get ready to go tomorrow
Monday
Another day of inprocessing down. There was another early formation in which my roommate took a dive to the pavement; she just passed out. It was a little scary but she woke up and was fine. It felt like we had a formation every hour and were eating nonstop. The meals are really close together so it just feels like all you do is eat. It was amazingly hot today but we got issued out spiffy little camelbacks so at least we will stay hydrated. I am ready to start school already but I’m sure once I do start school I will think that this wasn’t that bad either. Haha. I am planning on going to bed early tonight. It is about 730 and I am crawling under the covers. I need to catch up on some rest.
Sunday
Surprisingly, nothing much happened today. I had a formation at 730, went to chow, had another formation at 9 am and then we were released for the day. Of course I went right back to my room and both my roommate and I crashed out until about 2 pm. Man, it felt AMAZING to sleep that long. We got up, went to the PX to return some things and get some small items we missed off the packing list. Then we came back to the room and that is where we have been ever since. I have to go outside to the parking lot in order to use my phone. Once in a while I get reception in the room but most of the time it is in and out. My phone won’t even say I missed a call so make sure you leave me a voicemail so I can call you back.
Sometimes the smells and the sounds of the Army bring back so many memories for me. I have been feeling a mixture of excitement, fear, sadness, loneliness, and fun. I just put on my pt jacket for the first time tonight and the swishing of the fabric and the smell took me right back to Christmas in Afghanistan with all the SSA (Supply Support Activity) people. It was so vivid for me and I wanted to cry, just the loss of good friends and relationships since then due to a million different reasons. I think too the Army has brought back a lot of good feelings too. I am looking forward to the work and the intensity of things.
I am kind of feeling out this blog as I go…how personal to be, how honest to be, and what all to write. It can’t exactly be my journal because some things really do need to stay private. I am struggling with dealing with the Army without my ex by my side. It is a foreign concept to do this on my own after having him help me along the way for so many years. I know I am going to be successful and do not need him to hold my hand through this, but it is just very intense for me. I don’t think I have been this much of a ball of emotions for a really long time. It is already a wild ride and I haven’t even started OCS. Lol
Mary and I had a really good conversation today too, and I really do have the most amazing siblings in the world. Somehow they always make the world a better and more fun place.
Sometimes the smells and the sounds of the Army bring back so many memories for me. I have been feeling a mixture of excitement, fear, sadness, loneliness, and fun. I just put on my pt jacket for the first time tonight and the swishing of the fabric and the smell took me right back to Christmas in Afghanistan with all the SSA (Supply Support Activity) people. It was so vivid for me and I wanted to cry, just the loss of good friends and relationships since then due to a million different reasons. I think too the Army has brought back a lot of good feelings too. I am looking forward to the work and the intensity of things.
I am kind of feeling out this blog as I go…how personal to be, how honest to be, and what all to write. It can’t exactly be my journal because some things really do need to stay private. I am struggling with dealing with the Army without my ex by my side. It is a foreign concept to do this on my own after having him help me along the way for so many years. I know I am going to be successful and do not need him to hold my hand through this, but it is just very intense for me. I don’t think I have been this much of a ball of emotions for a really long time. It is already a wild ride and I haven’t even started OCS. Lol
Mary and I had a really good conversation today too, and I really do have the most amazing siblings in the world. Somehow they always make the world a better and more fun place.
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