Blog 37- Returning back to San Diego for Phase Two

(Closing a day with a drink with our Secretary and good friend, Stella!)

(After dropping our middle friend off and on to Dallas!)

From this blog starting in 1983 to getting out of the Navy 1987, I have many funny things and some sad things happen that I do not want to leave out. You will go back in time and share my Navy life and civilian life in San Diego. But, I have to finish the trip back first.

Even with someone in the car with me, this trip could be considered the loneliest one I had ever to this day. We had to get to Dallas in time to get my friend to his flight the next morning. I still do not know how he did it, but my ride slept almost the entire trip and only drove once so I could get two hour sleep. I drank coffee all day and night, and included taking No-Doz to stay awake. By the time we got to Dallas, we had six hours to get to the airport. I went to my grandmother’s home where we were 30 minutes to the airport. She allowed us to sleep until I needed to leave. We got to the airport on time and the sailor did not even acknowledge that I did most of the driving. After a few days at home I left for my post. My first night I stayed with my sister and her family in Midland, Texas. I drove straight through the next day and got a motel until I could find my new apartment.

I let the older boys from the scouts know that I was back and they helped me find apartments in the good part of the city and that were close to the Hospital and School. I found a quadraplex owned by an elderly couple who lived next door. I took it despite my scouts wanted me to get another. I told them that I just had good feelings about this place and felt I was meant to be there. They were seniors in High School with one joining the Coast Guards at 19. It was not long that my friends knew I came back and the partying came that weekend! As a student, I was assigned to the Nuclear Medicine Department for training, but I was actually stationed at the Naval School. My life could not have been better at this time.

(Finally, realizing what type of job the nuclear medicine field was about that I got myself involved in.)

After reporting in to the Nuclear Medicine Department, I realized that all technologists were Petty Officers and even though I was one, as well, I was still the lowest man on the totem pole and was sure to be treated as such. But, there was another student higher rank than me, we were treated equally when it came to training. I was assigned to a technologist that was going to be my mentor. He was a a very smart, competent, and friendly guy who really took care of my training. He was about to get discharged from the Navy, his wife and he were planning a family, and he wanted me to be the best tech there. I realized he was a student there a few years back and was ranked first in his class.

My assignment was to be his shadow whenever we were working, including being on call when he was. Then, he would be MY shadow, and he would just be around when I had questions or problems. This was an 8 month class, and I had assignments to do during this time as well. The group of employees of the department could not be beat, everyone was willing to help each other. The doctors were very willing to teach us, and, some of them were interns, so they needed our help as well.

Within the first two days, I realized that no matter how well I did in phase one, I had no idea what I got myself into. My first assignment was to draw blood from patients needing lab work, and then do the the lab work (using radiation) from the blood. We had to learn how to make radioactive doses that were injected to patients for different studies in their bodies. We were mostly designed to find cancers, heart problems, and functional exams for the gallbladder, kidneys, children’s urinal functions, internal bleeding, brain activities such as brain death, and finding blood clots in the lungs or legs.

When my mentor thought I was ready, he began having me inject the radiation into the patients. This sounds like a lot to learn right off, but it was assigned to one technologist all day, in two week cycles. We had a radioactive generator in our lab that had enough liquid radiation for almost two weeks. Since we were a large department, we had two generators. We rotated getting a new generator so that we always had enough to do any add-on studies overnight.

The tech assigned for this job started work at 6am, and the patients began arriving at 7:30am. The meds would be mixed based on the patients already scheduled for the day. We would always make sure we had extra meds ready to draw up if we had more studies. (I won’t go into half-lives of the radiation or the longevity of the med’s usefulness.) But, after making the doses, injecting our morning patients for their studies, then drawing blood for lab studies, we would go back to the lab and do the lab work, make doses for the afternoon patients, inject the afternoon patients, finish the lab studies, and begin getting things ready for the next day. I found that I liked this job the best because you got to go at an easy pace and everything began with your work.

My first true funny story begins here. My mentor and I were up in the lab making a medicine that required the radiation to mix in boiling water. You had to take a vial of the pharmaceutical, add liquid radiation to the mix, let it boil for 15-20 minutes in hot water, then take the vial and immediately immerse it into cool water for five minutes before finishing the mixture. My first question was, “Should you not let the vial cool down from boiling before immersing it into cooler water? Would you not be worried about the vial of liquid radiation exploding from pressure inside the vial ?” He laughed and said it had never happened in all his career so he assumed the vial was made to withhold the pressure.

Satisfied that he was wise about these things, I proceeded to move the vial from the boiling water and dropped it into the water, and “KABOOM!”, the vial exploded!!! (No joke or lie), We both leaped away from the radiation, began laughing hilariously, and he declared me a jinx and that he was going to ask for the other student! You must understand that when you have a liquid radiation exposure, although very small, it has to be handled in a very specific way. You do not just clean it up and start over. We had to report it to our chain of command, secure the area from exposure to you and others that would be exposed, then write a report to the physicist that had to review what could be done to keep it from happening again. (All this on my first day of making meds!) Ironically, though, my mentor had to take the blame for two reasons. First, I asked him could it happen. And second, it was his responsibility to monitor everything that I did. I felt so bad but he forgave me and our relationship as friends and trouble makers continued while he was there. (And besides, me being a student, he was able to get back at me in many ways.)

(to be continued in Blog 38)