Finally...

CharlieD3

CharlieD3

En-Route
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
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3,390
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Tennessee
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Display name:
CharlieD3
Ready to send it off to FAAther.

Think I'll get my medical? Or should I send it to a senior AME first?

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Last medical, I had EIGHTY, yes 80 pages of documentation for the FAA.
 
"All My Diagnoses" ... would be a great soap opera-style sitcom!
 
Expatriate to another more friendly aviation license country?
 
When is this level of __________ gonna be required to drive a car on public roads?
 
steingar said:
What the heck for?! You're an active healthy guy! Say it ain't so (unless its something venereal).
Click to expand...

Radiofrequency ablation and stab phlebectomies (21) of the greater saphenous vein in the left leg on March 17, 2017. Since I was pre-teen that vein was varicose and very visible and raised the skin over it about 0.75cm compared to the surrounding area. Not sure what caused it (I think taking a multivitamin that had K in it) but it started to clot. Within 3 days it went from just a puffy vein to a blood clot about 10-12cm wide x 30-35cm in length and raised about 2cm. Walking was extremely painful as it spanned across the knee joint on the inside of my left knee about equally above and below the joint. So, they inserted a catheter in the vein, and ablated/cauterized the vein just below where it joins the femoral vein. Then made 21 incisions in my leg and snipped out a whole bunch of the rest of the branches and twigs. That should have been the end of it. But nooo....

A week later I went back for follow up, and as it turns out, I'm "blessed" with larger diameter veins than a normal person. When they did the cauterization of the GSV they stopped short of the junction with the femoral at whatever distance they normally stop at, based on a normal diameter vein. However with the larger diameter, the "dome" of the clot become longer and no extended into the main stream of the femoral. Over 1000 some odd of these procedure performed over the previous 3 years, and I was the only one this happened to. They FREAK out. I'm immediately put on Xarelto and told to do absolutely NOTHING except lay in bed for the next week, because if any part of the clot breaks off it's going straight back to my chest.

Well, nothing happened. Well almost nothing except, apparently after a scare like this you're supposed to keep your cell phone next to you at all times in case your mom calls to see how you are doing, and when you don't answer a family APB is issued. (That's another story)

Remember when I said I had oversized veins? Yeah, so the other issue with that is since they are larger, when the post procedure inflammation occurs as expected, these veins which normally don't talk to the nerves are screaming at them. It felt like liquid fire was being poured into my leg. So they give me some 5/325 HC. After about a week of that, I'm fine. Until 6 weeks later I am getting horrible, horrible pain in my left leg. Swelling, can't put weight on it, etc. Well, they didn't get ALL of the branches of the vein. Get some more HC. Rather than them dying off like they are supposed to, they just keep doing their job. Except since they aren't taking the blood back to the heart because that pathway has been severed the blood is just getting dumped wherever in the lower leg. So we do ANOTHER procedure to remove some more remnants. Still have sporadic continuing issues through the summer of 2018. So I'm on and off HC until I go in for an ultrasound, because the vein that was ablated, I can still see and feel it. Apparently, I have some starfish DNA in me, because the mothereffing vein grew back. OK, not complete regeneration, but since it wasn't 100% ablated, it began healing itself, and there was blood flowing through it on the ultrasound - but again, not going anywhere except back into the leg. So in June or July of last year I had injections done which did kill off all the remnants of the greater saphenous vein and I've had 0 issue since, and follow up ultrasounds in the spring of this year confirm this is the case.

This was NOT a DVT issue, but because my last prescription for HC was within 12 calendar months of my medical, that triggers all sorts of **** for the FAA. We knew this going in, so I got a copy of EVERYTHING I had done between 1/1/17 and the end of 2018. Every visit, every prescription, every test result (Which also included some other things like 3 weeks worth of food poisoning complications), everything.

Sure enough a couple weeks ago I get a letter from the FAA saying "we need more information because blah blah blah". So we send them the terminating letter from the vascular surgeon. Nope, not good enough. I get a phone call from the regional and she makes the mistake of saying she wanted everything. Oh, everything you say? You got it. Have fun digging through pages and pages of **** - almost literal **** - as one of the things I had to do with the food poisoning issue was crap in a plastic tub and then break it apart into different vials, add chemicals, and take it to pathology. You wanted everything? Have fun digging through reading about my poop you bureaucratic waste of tax dollars. That package should arrive to them in about an hour or so. Should have sent the actual poop with it.
 
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Ouch! I am so sorry to hear. Yes, sending them the actual excrement would have been a nice flourish. You could put a sign on it saying g"you wanted everything, didn't you?" It was good seeing you at 6Y9 (took my old brain a few minutes to get percolating, I have to admit) and if I get the IR I might head that way more often. It is certainly beautiful. I had plans to fly up near Saginaw this weekend, but the wx does not look permissive up that way. Still hopeful I can find a window.
 
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