Exposures And Health: Preface
Documenting environmental exposures while performing aircraft maintenance
I’ve been dealing with several health related issues for quite some time. I noticed a few of the symptoms soon after I separated from the US Air Force. But, I was young, and I felt I wasn’t going to complain or seek “retribution” due to my time in service. I started out telling myself:
It’s Ok if I had a hard time keeping up with other guys my age when we were playing soccer, right?
It’s Ok that I seem to be seeing more moles than I had when I was in my teens, right?
It’s Ok if at certain times in a quiet movie theater or waiting for a meeting to start I heard ringing in my ears, right?
It’s Ok if my blood work was showing a slight increase in my PSA numbers, right?
I mean, I’m getting older; we all fall apart at different rates… if my doctors weren’t alarmed, why should I, right? Well, wrong… here we go…
My dismissal and relative denial of my symptoms went on for years. I would discuss the things that bothered me with my doctors but they never saw things as “worrisome”. I’d leave my appointments with either a suggestion to try something or the doctor would prescribe something to lessen the symptom(s). That worked out Ok for a while until I started to notice a feeling of anxiety in the morning while sitting comfortably on the couch drinking my coffee.
To me, a feeling of anxiety is more a mental thing than a physical thing. Stress and uneasy feelings are because I am worrying about something like a meeting or a project; none of that was happening in my life. This lead me to believe my body was actually telling me something else isn’t working so well and maybe I should start paying better attention. With that realization, I began to break things down to determine if this is truly anxiety or maybe something else.
As I deconstructed this “anxiousness”, I noticed my breathing was shorter — like I was inhaling in short bursts through my nose. My chest wasn’t expanding as much as I’d like, I had less volume of air in my lungs, making me feel “uneasy” — but why? Then, it became clear that my nasal passages weren’t as “open” like when I was younger. Huh, that’s odd, what could have caused that I wonder…???
At this point, my wife Cheryl said it’s time to really figure this out — ASAP. We both agreed that the doctors I’ve been seeing haven’t really helped. I would share with my doctors that maybe damage to my nose and lungs might have been from all the stuff I was exposed to in the Air Force. It just became clearer to me that my “civilian” doctors aren’t necessarily “wired” to look at environmental exposures encountered while executing my assigned duties. I applied to the VA.
This has been quite an experience so far. The one thing I can say is my treatment team, every doctor or PA or nurse, has been AWESOME! I’m so very lucky they are looking out for me. What’s made this an experience is that we’ve found more than just difficulty breathing… and this sent me into a few months of research to understand what each encounter with any piece of equipment, aircraft, material, chemical, or EMF may have done to alter or affect some part of my physiology — and in some sense psychology.
As I was going through all of my VA appointments, I also reached out to my local VSO (Veteran Service Organization). My VSO Representative has been instrumental in, and very supportive of, my filing a claim for disability due to my time in service. When I completed documenting my exposures for the claim and shared these findings with him, he said, “We need to get your paperwork started ASAP.”
I decided a few days ago that it would be good to share with you some of the fruits of my research. In this series of posts I’ll be documenting all of the environmental exposures encountered while working on the navigation equipment and the aircraft maintenance activities required to fulfill my duties. Here are a few samples I believe you might find interesting:
I’ve accumulated quite the list of sites and sources while compiling this data. I am planning on a specific post with each resource — maybe it will help some of you out there looking for the same information.
I believe even the smallest of encounters and exposures can affect each and every person differently. While we all have the same basic building blocks, we are all not exactly the same.
I did find something a bit disconcerting: a large percentage of the researchers have been focusing solely on pilots and aircrews and not the technicians and ground crews. I submit more damage happens to personnel on the ground than does to an aircrew.
It is true, pilots (aircrews) are exposed during a mission or while training. But their flight profiles dictate breaks in between. In stark contrast, those on the ground are exposed all day, every day, while they are: troubleshooting, repairing, installing, testing, and even just walking across the tarmac on the flightline. There are no breaks — your shifts are all week long — and your exposure is “in the open” without the benefit of panels between you and the exposure. Oh, and, while repairing the equipment, just remember that there are lots of other really bad things we come into contact with that no one else will even see, let alone smell.
To give you all a little more background on my environmental exposures, I thought it would be good to share with you my experiences during my time in the US Air Force. I’ll be picking from many, or maybe all, of the following:
My exact specialty training (AFSC: 328x4)
Electronics technician
Navigator
Bombardier
My overall training
Basic training
Ok, we had the easiest of all I believe
Marksmanship ribbon
Electronics
Analog
Digital
Discrete components
Sub-assemblies
Shop units
Line units
Navigation and air delivery
Compass and sextant (bearing, distance, time, heading)
Coordinates, waypoints, topography
Altitude, speed, weight, drag, trajectory
Target, bombsight, timing, pickle button
Radio (via TACAN reference)
Doppler radar
Inertial (gimballed gyroscope)
Celestial (stellar, gimballed sextant)
Satellite (pre-GPS)
The aircraft
C-9A Nightingale
T-39
MC/EC/RC/C-130
EC/RC/WC/KC/C-135
E-4A/B
F-5 / T-38
SR-71 Blackbird
U-2 Dragon Lady
The bases and missions
Keesler AFB, Biloxi MS
Basic Electronics
Inertial and Doppler Navigation Systems (AFSC: 328x4)
Pope AFB, Fayetteville NC
Adverse Weather Air Delivery System (AWADS)
Rhein Main AFB, Frankfurt, West Germany (USAFE)
Military Airlift Command (MAC - 435th TAS)
Aeromedical Airlift Squadron (55th AAS, 2nd AES)
Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC - 7th SOS)
Flintlock (RAF Sculthorpe, UK)
Aviano (Aviano AFB, Italy)
Offutt AFB, Omaha NE
Strategic Air Command (55th AMS)
Airborne Mobile Command Post (SAC-HQ)
Beale AFB, Marysville CA
Strategic Air Command (9th AMS)
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO, et al)
Growth and leadership
E-1 to E-3 to E-5 in less than 4 years
Security Police Augmentee (flightline and ISO / Fuels hangars)
Carousel IV-E Lead Installer
Flightline QC Lead
ISO Lead
Civilian Contractor Liaison
These are just the highlights and it all happened in the first six (6) years of my career!
Let me be clear, I am not upset, nor do I have an axe to grind with the DoD or the US Air Force. If I woke up tomorrow morning and my bag was at the end of my bed, I would pick it up and run to the bus that ultimately got me to Lackland AFB where my entire career began. I would do it ALL again, without hesitation, and with the exact same fascination and awe because the things I got to see and do, well … … … daaaaaang!
Please share this post with ANYONE you know who might benefit. Ask them to sign up for a free account to get notified when I post. And, for some of the material will be quite personal and that will be behind the paywall. But I will try my best to share as much as possible out in the open…
Aim High!