Appendicitis? (no, not me)

Another fine, Navy day at sea. Rolled out of bed with just enough time to shower, eat some lunch, and head down for my 1230 brief. We had a young cook from Wardroom III on board as a passenger today. Unfortunately, we had a minor problem with our Auxiliary Power Unit when we hot pumped into the aircraft this afternoon. We shut down for a little bit to troubleshoot, but couldn't fix the problem. I decided to take it flying because it wasn't going to be a big deal for us during the day time. I told the Air Boss to expect us to swap out aircraft before sunset. With a little more troubleshooting in the air and some discussion with a squadron rep over the radio, though, we figured out the problem, and during a quick deck hit after the next fixed wing launch and recovery, we got it fixed and were able to keep the aircraft flying the rest of the day. During our deck hit, we learned that there were some important packages that needed to get over to the cruiser. So while the mech's were up on top of the aircraft, we loaded up the packages to deliver them. It was a quick flight over there to drop off the boxes, then back to our plane guard mission. Somewhere in there we also found a cargo ship and got some pictures of it. It was a busy flight and our passenger seemed to enjoy the flight. He got lots of pictures of different ships, saw a little bit of the many things we do, and best of all, got off the ship for a couple hours. As I've learned many times, getting a new perspective is good for the soul.

This evening we learned that one of our young PC's had reported to medical with a pain in his belly. My first thought was the greasy pizza they had served for dinner. No, it looks like he may have appendicitis, but they won't know until they run some more tests in the morning to get a white blood cell count trend. If it is his appendix, they'll do the surgery right here on the ship! We have a surgeon, anesthesiologist, and a full OR on board. It's amazing, all the crazy cases they get down in medical every day. Two broken bones in the past two days. A case of trench foot a few weeks ago! All kinds of rashes, infections, cuts, burns, and things I can't even describe. I was thinking earlier, they could do a pretty interesting ER-type TV show featuring the medical department on a carrier (it would probably be more like "Scrubs"). Our Airman is in good hands. Hopefully it turns out to be something much less troublesome. He gets to spend the night on the ward, under observation. Please say a prayer for him.

I'm actually writing this before midnight for once! I'm going to hit midrats for a slice of pizza. Hopefully it will be better than dinner. For the last two weeks the Saturday night pizza has been thin and greasy--not nearly up to the standard that was set in the beginning of cruise. Still, its pizza and I can't pass it up. A slice of pizza, some chocolate milk, then off to bed. I'm doing the Scripture reading during the church service in the morning. 1 John 2:24-29. OK, off to 'rats. Goodnight from somewhere in the North Arabian Sea.