Stormy Weather

Dear Blog Readers (If any of you are left besides Tom and my sister),

I have grown to appreciate you a great deal more in the past twelve hours. Because you see, gentle readers, I have faced death. Twice. I almost got friggin' killed. Twice in the past twelve hours. And it was scary as hell. Really.

So, as you probably all know, I do not relish flying. Nor do I pickle, lettuce, mayo, or cheese it. And yes, I know those are not all condiments. My blog, my corny jokes. Regardless. I don't like to fly. At all. But I have to, and I do. Without restraint. Because I refuse to let my fear rule me. And also because flying is the fastest way out of Alabama so I'm totally up for it. And because of my job. Fine. Cool beans. I don't like it, but it's ooookay.

One of our surgeons, coincidentally a surgeon mentioned here before, Dr. ACP (see last post) is a pilot in his spare time. So, if I go on a case with Dr. ACP, besides basking in his radiant Australian glow I am also able to feel better about flying because I know that if worst comes to worst (what a stupid saying. What the hell does that even mean anyway?) he can hop up in the pilot seat and get us home. I know this because it's happened. Not to me (THANK GOD I WOULD SO NEVER SET FOOT IN A PLANE AGAIN IF THIS EVER HAPPENED TO ME) but to a couple other coordinators. They were in a relatively new plane, took off, and the engine exploded. In midair. Coordinators were screaming, shrapnel was flying from the plane, and what did Dr. ACP do? Told everyone it was fine. Talked the pilots through the landing. And those same coordinators still fly. (C-R-A-Z-A-Y.) Dr. ACP has also had landing gear fail to deploy and has had to land without it twice, and has been in a helicopter crash. Upon reflection I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't be with him cause he seems to be a magnet for air transportation accidents.

Anyways. So, tonight we were leaving on a case and it was just Dr. ACP and me. woo. My first lung run by myself. woo. We're on the way to the airport and the pilot calls.
Pilot: "Hey, where are you guys?"
Sam: "We're pulling into the airport, why?"
Pilot: "Ok, we just wanted to make sure you were going to get here in time."
Sam: "In time for what?"
Pilot: "If we don't take off in the next ten minutes, we're not going to make it. There's a huge storm rolling in."

At that point I decided to avert my gaze to the angry angry heavens and sure enough, it was black outside. With occasional lightning (also, just to let you know, I just typed "lightnight" because that is how tired I am) strikes. Instantly I'm ready to say, "umm....flight cancelled." But no. Dr. ACP says it'll be fine. Oookay. I do trust him a lot. He's a pilot, he's a transplant surgeon, he has an accent, what's not to trust? So, I get on the plane. And that was the worst mistake of my life. We take off...we're literally taking off and he shows me his phone with the weather radar on it. It looks like the apocalypse over Alabama. You know, if the apocalypse was actually being run by the Crayola company instead of the four horsemen. There were many angry angry colors on that radar. I incredulously enquired as to whether we would be flying into that. "Ohh, no no. We'll go round it." Oookay. As soon as we're in the air, he looks at me and says "we're gonna bump." I said "ummm, when?" "oh, while we're going around the edge of the storm. nothing to worry about." Okay, so apparently, "bump" is Australian, or code, or a damn dirty lie that means "fall out of the sky." The plane was all over the friggin' place. I was absolutely terrified. But Dr. ACP was okay, so I was trying to be okay. I can speak calmly about this now because I'm alive. I would totally not be able to had I died. Because I would be dead. And probably mute. Probably.

So, we made it to Indiana. woo. I was pretty happy to be out of the plane. I really wanted to hug the pilots and just thank them for me being alive. But I suppressed it. (go me.) Went to the hospital, did my first solo case, woo. It was fine, exhausting, but fine. The person getting the organs had been on the list for almost two years. Which is insane for lungs. Usually you die before that. So I'm thrilled about that, totally worth the trip.

And then it was time to go home. And they said that by the time we got there the weather would be gone. Lying bastards. We're flying home, lights are out, Dr. ACP's asleep, I'm listening to the iPod, it's all good. And then the plane falls about 100 feet. Just falls. I scream. Dr. ACP buckles in. The plane literally bucked all over the place. I mean, hard. I honestly have never been more terrified in my entire life. And I was in the trunk of a car as it was rear-ended. This was scarier. Soo much scarier. And I know. You're probably thinking I'm exaggerating, because honestly, I'm realizing that everytime I've ever complained about a plane ride it was an exaggeration. Because this was the real thing. This was my near-death experience. Really. Because when you land and the pilots are high-fiving eachother and yelling "woohoo!" you know that about 20 minutes ago they probably thought they were well fucked. I know I did.

So, in closing this long and insanely rambly post (it is 240 in the morning...cut me some slack) let me just give you a few tips.
1. Don't fly in bad weather.
2. If you are flying in bad weather, don't try to eat. It's a bad idea. Trust me.
3. Don't try to hold hands with a surgeon just cause you're scared. He won't go for it.
4. Always wear clean underwear. (That's just good hygiene.)
5. Make sure you actually are in the process of meeting your maker before shouting profanities in front of your boss's boss. (I'm sure that one's going to come back on me.)

Okay, that's all for now I guess. Really, I hope you guys skimmed this one. It's wayy too long. Laters!