The Mondays

Today was Kaylee's first day back at school.  She survived okay, although she came home and took a nap (on me) before heading back out for a late Encore practice and then an even later practice for the Talent Show with Meredith.  She says she still gets a headache if she reads or looks at screens too much, but other than that her head is feeling fine. Austin, the young man with cancer in Encore, is having his leg amputated below the knee on Oct. 31st. They had a walk/party the other day for that, and she wore a flight suit and my helmet.  She said a lot of people asked her if she was in the Air Force, even though everyone else was in costume too.  That's okay, I get that too.  Even though we're both in costume.  ;)

I think I'm calling the doctor to set up a time to ask about maybe sinus headaches.   I have a new-ish pattern, where I have a headache one day that I can kick, and then the next day I get another one that I can't.  Yesterday was Day Two. I inhaled an entire bottle of oxygen, took decongestants and an allergy med, had caffeine, had water, did everything right, couldn't get rid of it.  I can feel the right side of my head stuff up, can't breathe out of the right side of my nose, I feel hot to myself but don't really run much of a temp that I can tell.   A recurring sinus infection?  I don't know, but I was fine at 4:30.  By 5:30 I was not fine.  I fixed it, but I need to figure out how to prevent it.

Last night I had another trip back to Columbus, OH to pick up the family of four.  I left around 7 pm, and right as I was lifting off, something came flying at me and hit me in the head.  It didn't feel very good, because it was metal.  The entire air vent unit fell out of the ceiling over my head, and hit me!  What timing.  It's a little inconvenient time to be smacked in the head, right when you're rotating.

The moon was so full that it was making me squint a little bit.  Such a huge, bright, full moon, and a beautiful sunset behind me, too.  I couldn't get a good photo of the sunset because of my direction of travel, but I got a few of the moon.  It was almost like daylight out there.

When I got to Columbus, they were early.   They're NEVER early!  Fortunately I wasn't taking on any gas, because there are so many of us on board, I don't want the extra weight.  So I talked to the line guy, who wants to be a professional pilot too, loaded up the plane, and we headed back home right away, no delay.  I didn't even get to the bathroom.  :)  But it's only an hour flight, even with the headwinds.

All the way home, the boss sat up front and asked me questions on how to control and land the airplane if I were to keel over and die on him.  I explained how to work the push to talk switch, where the main things were that they'd tell him to do (throttle, gear, manifold pressure, airspeed, altitude, flaps, heading), how they worked, what they'd have him do and how he'd control it, and talked him through my landing.  I'd have let him fly it, but with three other motion sensitive people in the back it would have been a bad idea.  ;)  He asked if that happened often, where someone had to be talked down after their pilot was incapacitated.  I said it HAS happened, but I wouldn't call it often, no.  Then he asked a lot of questions about what was required medically to be a pilot.  I don't know if he's worried about my health, or curious in general.  ;) 

I was home by shortly after 10 pm though, which isn't bad at all for a trip that didn't start until 7!

My attempt at getting the sunset behind me, unsuccessfully.

The moon through the wind screen, looks like the sun.

Columbus, Ohio under the moon.

The dumb air vent that hit me in the head.  :p