Phillip Sherwood

This past week was a really busy one and has certainly taken its toll on me but I’ll get into that later. Monday morning began with final prep, loading the car and a long drive to St. Louis to attend the annual Utility Helicopter User’s Conference at the Hyatt Regency hotel directly across the street from the famous Arch – Gateway to the West. The trip took seven hours on the dot and the weather was in the mid to high 70’s. The drive was uneventful until I came upon the psycho trucker. Some 18-wheeler passed me on my left then slowed alongside another truck blocking the road. I thought they were communicating with one another or something. As the mad trucker pulled away and into the right (slow) lane, I proceeded to pass on the left. As I was almost at the halfway point, he quickly came over on me causing me to slam on my hand brake so as to not get run off the road. It was obvious to me it was intentional. I have no idea what in the world would possess him to do something like that.

I made it to the hotel without any further incidents, got checked in and headed to the reception sponsored by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. The buffet was great and full of jumbo shrimp, crab balls, prime rib and other palatable treats. The room was very nice but getting to it was a workout because of the plush carpet but by the end of the trip, I was rolling over it with seemingly less effort. The conference is sponsored by the Utility Helicopter Project Office here at Redstone Arsenal, AL and it brings the users from the field together with key individuals from the project office and third party vendors who provide equipment and/or support services. It functions as a collaborative effort to share information and is truly a worthwhile event. I’ve been going to these since 2001. It was good to see so many of my friends and former co-workers from when I was in the Army.

The day would usually begin with a 7:45am continental breakfast then on to the meetings. During the breaks, everyone would file out of the conference room to visit all the exhibits in the hall next door. Some of the exhibits have large power requirements in order to provide product demos so large thick cables would traverse across the carpeted floor and secured with tape. I remembered my lesson from last year when I was not paying attention and hit one of these cables dead on and my wheelchair came to an abrupt halt nearly dumping me onto the floor to my front. I popped a wheelie and easily navigated the obstacle. The rotating between exhibits, conference lectures and sidebar meeting last until 4pm then that would be the end of the “business” day. Around 5-5:30pm, were the catered vendor socials and sometimes where the real business deals are made.

The days began for me much earlier than I am accustomed to but since it was only an elevator ride downstairs vs. a drive into work facilitated the earlier starts. On the second evening, there was a tailgate party in the park just two blocks from the hotel prior to the baseball game sponsored by Utility Helicopters with assorted Budweiser beer products, Subway sandwiches and White Castle burgers. I didn’t go to the game so I went back to the hotel and organized my days’ notes and catch up on the multitude of emails that arrived during the day. I got to bed at a fairly decent hour and dozed off to sleep. This is where the trip for me started to take a bad turn.

As customary, I woke up to my preset alarm clock at 3am to do my IC and catch some news highlights before falling back to sleep. When I woke up at 6am, the bed was soaked and I was in utter disbelief. This has not happened since I was a little boy. I went ahead with my normal morning rituals as my coffee was brewing. When all was done and I was dressed and heading out to the door, I looked down and noticed I had leaked out again and it was a lot. This happened once before this year when I was visiting my mother and found the Tetracycline I was taking was causing the incontinence condition. I went to the bathroom to do another IC and there was about 350-400 cc’s which was more than I expected. I only had one glass of wine the night before and didn’t drink anymore of my G2 sports drink at night than I normally do. I hadn’t changed my medication and by now not only was I getting concerned but I was very puzzled. Luckily I had thought to pack a bag of the condom catheters at the last minute before leaving the apartment. They were leftover from my Maryland trip. I had to jump into the shower and not only wash me off but my wheelchair and seat cushion too. This really sucked.

The conference ended Thursday at noon as did my scheduled teleconferences by 3pm so I decided to stay and leave Friday morning to avoid getting caught on the road after dark on the tail end of the long drive. My drive back home seemed to pass very quickly because I was in phone conference calls nearly the entire trip. I stopped in Nashville to have lunch with my friend Debbie from High School. Through facebook, we discovered we were both going to be there the same day so we coordinated to meet again as we did in the spring. It was great to see her again and the hours just clicked away as we just talked and talked about our lives since high school. We parted before getting caught up in the evening Nashville rush hour traffic. The rest of the trip went well and I got back to the apartment by 6pm giving me enough time to meet my friends Julia and Teen for dinner at a Thai restaurant on the other side of town. As I was draining my leg bag and performing an IC, I sprung a leak that required me to do a HAZMAT clean-up eating up all the reserve bank time I had to not have to rush to meet them at the restaurant by 7pm.

Midway through dinner, I had a severe pain in my back calling me to enact Vicodin relief act. I try not to use this or the sleeping pills unless absolutely necessary but the pain was such that I couldn’t even eat. After this very nice dinner, I came home and finished unpacking my car, got my mail, played with Bob then turned on the home computer to download my personal email that had accumulated during the trip. I got to bed somewhere around 1am but not to get out of bed until that same time 12 hours later. I was really wiped out and more so than I thought. I finally rolled out of bed, got some breakfast, took a shower and tended to things around the apartment when I was overcome by fatigue around 5pm so I laid down to nap a little while but slept until about an hour ago at 9pm. I didn’t feel like going out so I decided to write my weeks’ post thinking now I’m going to be awake all night for having slept nearly the entire day. About ten minutes ago, I start feeling sleepy again so I’m going to end this here and go back to bed. I am still having the incontinence problem and now with this excessive fatigue, I need to go see a doctor Monday morning. Something is definitely not right. Since I didn’t get by the house today to check on the weeks’ progress, I’ll go tomorrow and get some new pix. Hopefully the roof is up by now. Wishful thinking… phillip