The Land of Ozz

CBS ran a story last night that briefly mentioned that the FAA has recently revoked some medical certificates due to certain medical conditions. This little piece about medical certificates is the part I want to expand on. The story primarily focused on a young pilot in Florida who was able to learn to fly even though he suffers from a spinal cord injury that does not allow for him to walk. It was a great story and I applaud CBS for pointing out that an injury like this does not shatter all dreams.

I just recently went in to my Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) for a FAA Second Class medical certificate. I got the certificate, but it was not the easiest trip to the medical examiner this time. I have been diagnosed with hypertension since the last time I was awarded a FAA medical certificate. Here is what the FAA has to say about hypertension.

"The Examiner may issue first-, second-, or third-class medical certificates to otherwise qualified airmen whose hypertension is adequately controlled with acceptable medications without significant adverse effects. In such cases, the Examiner shall:
1. Conduct an evaluation or, at the applicant's option, review the report of a current (within preceding 6 months) cardiovascular evaluation by the applicant's attending physician. This evaluation must include pertinent personal and family medical history, including an assessment of the risk factors for coronary heart disease, a clinical examination including at least three blood pressure readings separated by at least 24-hours each, a resting ECG, and a report of fasting plasma glucose, cholesterol (LDL/HDL), triglycerides, potassium, and creatinine levels. A maximal electrocardiographic exercise stress test will be accomplished if it is indicated by history or clinical findings. Specific mention must be made of the medications used, their dosage, and the presence, absence, or history of adverse effects.
2. Summarize the results of this evaluation in Item 60 of the transmitted application and forward the appropriate documents to the AMCD.

3. Report the results of any additional tests or evaluations that have been accomplished.

4. If appropriate, state in Item 60 on the FAA Form 8500-8 that the applicant's blood pressure is adequately controlled with acceptable medication, there are no known significant adverse effects, and no other cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, or arteriosclerotic disease is evident.

5. Defer certification if the person declines any of the recommended evaluations."

I reported on my application for my new medical certificate that I had been diagnosed with hypertension since my last FAA examination and that I was taking blood pressure medication regularly to regulate my condition. I was referred back to my attending physician just like the rules above require. I did all of the tests required including blood tests, ECG, and daily blood pressures for a few days. During this process my attending physician told me that several of his other patients were pilots who had been diagnosed with hypertension. He said that many of them used the same medical examiner for their FAA medical examinations and that this was the first time he had ever been asked to provide the items listed above. That inforamtion was very disturbing to me.

I can only come to a short list of possible reasons why a pilot would not need to go back to their attending physician with this issue especially using the same AME that I use.

• The pilot has not tried to renew their medical since the diagnosis


• The pilot went to a new attending physician to meet the above requirements


• The AMA missed the diagnosis on the application


• The pilot forgot to report their new diagnosis (yeah right)


• The pilot lied on their application for the medical certificate

The last reson in this list is the most disturbing to me and the one that I fear is the more common reason for my doctor not seeing his pilot patients coming back for the same reason that I did. I can only speculate on that.

I encourage any pilot who has been diagnosed with anything new since their last medical to report it on the application. Any false or information intentionally omitted from the application leads to an invalid certificate. I find it difficult to believe that a pilot who is able to remember to take medication every day could forget to list blood pressure medicine on an application for a medical certificate that clearly asks for the information. A pilot who lands in court due to some aviation related incident might easily be found at fault regardless of other circumstances simply due to operating an aircraft with an invalid medical certificate.

I realize that I have not provided any specific instances of people getting in trouble with invalid medical certificates. I hope my first story on such a thing is not related to someone I know. I hope that this story helps my fellow pilots understand the importance of filling out official applications correctly and completely. My Second Class Medical was granted. It was not the most fun process I have ever endured, but I see it as necessary.

Sources:
AOPA Online Members Only -– Medical Subject Report -– Hypertension
FAA Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners - PROTOCOL FOR EVALUATION OF HYPERTENSION

I beleive I am about to make the jump to WordPress with one or more of my blogs. My only real beef with blogger is that it does not allow for categories. At least I have not found a way to do it. I have emailed the support folks and received no response. I am testing by cross posting some of my stuff to the TESTING area.

I will keep at least one Blog on Blogger. Blogger does integrate some really cool features that I like even though I do not use them a bunch. One is podcasting with Audio Blogger. I have tested it from my home and cell phones and it works as advertised. I can still post MP3 files manually with WordPress after recording with my iRiver MP3 Player.

This message will be posted on the test site as well.

You can read the details on the Contact Us page that tell you how to receive an email each time Caden's Page is updated.

After looking at the Contact Us page you may wonder if I am worried about publishing our address on the Internet. No, not really. If you have a registered phone number or own property in most large counties then you can easily be located on the Internet anyway. Read my recent story titled Online Truth Part Two: Personal Information for details.

Please take time to comment on this posting. I took my first drive across the new Cooper River Bridge today. It was GREAT! I loved it.

I have a few questions that I would love to get some responses to if you have a minute.


Questions for locals and recent visitors to Charleston:

1. Have you crossed the new Cooper River Bridge on foot or in a vehicle? If so please comment on your experience.

2. Did you see the fireworks on Thursday evening? If so please share your opinion.

3. Do you expect to use the new Cooper River Bridge more than you used the two old Cooper River Bridges?


Questions for everyone:

4. Do you know how much was actually spent on the fireworks and other associated ceremonies?

5. Do you think the opening of the new Cooper River Bridge was important enough to have what was reported as one of the largest fireworks shows in the South East?


I have found a blog that has caught my attention titled Truth, Quante-fied. Warning is the word found at the top of the most recent posting due to material that may not be suitable for all ages, but that does not reflect the overall theme of the site. Keep that in mind if you want to view other pages besides the ones listed below. These guys are pretty good and I will definitely go back for more information and entertainment.

From Truth, Quante-Fied
Cooper River Bridge Tour
More Bridge Pictures
Glenn Beck Talks Charleston
NCR Bridge Exclusive (Really cool night pictures)

You can see Pictures taken by me and read last week's posting titled Walked the "New Bridge".

I just could not stand it any longer. I have been planning to add some of my flying experiences to my blog. I have planning to start the fun of sharing cool flying experiences for a while. I am going to start by giving you my favorite or best days of flying. I have many and I think I can narrow it down to about five. I can not guarantee that I will stop at five, but I will save the best one for last. It will be titled "Best Day of Flying Ever". Today I will share my first experience that took place in 1994 just two days before I was awarded my Private Pilot's License.

I mentioned my ramp side tour of DIA (Denver International Airport) when writing about my family's recent trip to the New Bridge in Charleston, SC and that just got me all stirred up about flying stuff. I got even more excited about my flying when I won a prize from the drawing at the Charleston Air Force Base Aero Club earlier this evening during the monthly safety meeting. My prize was a $100 credit towards airplane rental or merchandise.

I decided to dig out an old photo yesterday from my early flying days. Well, I did take my first flying lesson when in high school over 20 years ago. Considering that I guess a ten year old picture is not my early flying days after all. Yes this picture was taken over ten years ago and it was well over ten pounds ago. The photo was taken in front of what I believe is Gate B42 of the Denver International Airport. This picture was pinned to a bulletin board in my garage. I have not been able to put my hands on the other pictures that were taken that day. I will share more as an amendment to this story when I find them.

The airport construction was complete at DIA but the baggage system was not functioning properly. One of the pictures I am hunting is a very cute photo of a lady pulling a wagon across the tarmac with a sign tapped to the side that said, "Alternate Baggage System". I am pretty sure they eventually got things working without the use of her wagon. The city of Denver was trying to find some creative ways to use the airport while waiting on the baggage system problems to be corrected. This fly-in that I attended was arranged for GA (General Aviation) pilots to bring their small planes into DIA on September 25, 1994. I flew in from Cheyenne, WY with two of my best friends one of which became my friend after first becoming my flight instructor. Kevin is now flying Apache helicopters as a maintenance test pilot in the US Army. He stopped by my house to visit a couple of years ago. He was at my side that morning with my other friend Jim in the back seat. We joined the hundreds of other people and their small planes as we arrived and departed DIA within a matter of just a few hours on that Sunday morning. I never heard the official count, but rumors were that over 500 propeller driven airplanes arrived and departed DIA that day within approximately six hours. I was required to bring my instructor due to the fly-in being restricted to those with a minimum of a Private Pilot's License. As I said earlier I was just two days from my private pilot check ride. Kevin was planning on going anyway. I was scheduled to take my check ride the prior week but had to cancel it due to weather. I was actually planning for DIA to be the first place I landed as a licensed private pilot. Instead DIA ended up being one of the last airports I landed at as a student pilot.

It was such a cool experience. The air traffic controllers had us landing two on each runway simultaneously. I landed hot (fast) that morning mid field of runway 17R. I had a faster airplane breathing down my neck and the controller had asked me to keep my speed up to keep things in order. I must have been doing 90 knots when I completed my decent down to the runway. It was not a big deal since I had about a mile of runway left over to bleed off airspeed before touching down. The runways at DIA stretch out to more than two miles each in length. You read more about the airport at www.flydenver.com.

This was by far one of the most memorable flying experiences for me as a pilot not to mention a once in a lifetime experience. It is not very often that you get to land a Cessna 172 and taxi right up to the commercial terminal of one of the world's largest airports. There will be more "Best Flying Day" stories coming soon.

I was happy to hear Glenn Beck give Michelle Malkin a plug on his show today. Glenn said, "I think she's brilliant" and I agree with him. Glenn and Michelle are ranked at the top of my chart in star terms and I arrived at my opinion about each of them independently. I had never seen an article on Michelle Malkin's site referring to Glenn Beck until I searched for them today. I had never heard Glenn mention Michelle before today either which is what prompted me to search to see if Michelle had any references to Glenn on her site.

I probably average spending more time listening to Glenn Beck and reading Michelle Malkin's web site than I spend watching television these days. The remainder of my long nights caring for my youngest son Caden includes working from home and writing in my blogs. This is mainly because a large majority of television programming stinks and TV news is almost certain to be bias in favor of ratings no matter what the subject. Michelle is an awesome resource for complete and accurate information concerning the hottest news stories. Glenn comes up with well researched topics for his show and often has some creative and entertaining ideas for solving some of the world's problems.

The really bizarre thing about my findings today is that Glenn Beck show regularly reports approximately 8 million total listeners. Today MichelleMalkin.com reached an equally impressive number of 8 million total visitors to her web site according to her trusty little Site Meter statistics.

You can read article where Michelle mentions Glenn Beck here, here, here, here, here, and here.

You can become a Glenn Beck Show Insider like me by going here.

Thanks to Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin for their pursuit of the truth in all that matters. Keep up the great work.

Surprise! Some of us support our president in a time of war no matter what party his is affiliated with. It seems that some of the folks on the liberal side of the fence are taking notice that Bush bashing is not as effective as they thought.

Michelle Malkin pulls together several resources on this developing story. It is a start. Now if hard core liberals stop screaming about what or who they hate, then that means they will have to come up with a list of what they like. Better yet they could just be quite for a while and appreciate the good job of our troops and our president.

It was more like a bus ride up and a walk down. My family and I visited the "New Bridge" in Charleston, SC today. It was a once in a lifetime experience to view a massive public construction project before it is open for its intended use. This bridge is the largest public construction project in the history of the state of South Carolina. My last such experience was when I took a ramp side tour of DIA (Denver International Airport) in September of 1994 while they were still working to get the baggage system problems ironed out. The general aviation pilots along the front range of the Rocky Mountains were invited to a fly-in at DIA. I rented a Cessna 172 and took my instructor along to ride in the right seat since I was a week away from taking my private pilot check ride.

Anyway, the official name of the new bridge is the "Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge" named after a local politician. You can read more about the construction, history and design of the bridge here. The new bridge will replace the two old bridges known as "The Cooper River Bridges". The whole family had a load of fun. You can see more pictures of our visit here.

I have to stop for a minute and share with you some inspiration. I am going to post a normal update in a few minutes, but first I want to respond to a comment by Hailey's family on the July 4th posting. If you have not been following Hailey's story, she was diagnosed with DiGeorge and was born in Boston about a month before Caden's birth. She spent several months at Duke recovering from a transplant to help repair her immune system. She is home with her family now and doing good. Here is the comment from her family if you have not seen it yet.

Hi Caden and Family;

im so sorry you had to go through this over the weekend but were glad it worked out for the best (Hank)you know what Caden needs are you keep fighting for it... way to go.

I'm glad you got to see the fireworks for your first time its great. Hailey enjoyed them also you two kids are so special its unbelievable. God has given you kids to us for a reason. We are starting to see what that reasone is. You are special and we cant wait to here how good you are doing.

talk soon

Paul,Chrissy and Hailey
p.s. we talked to Dr. Markert today and told her about Caden if there is anything we can do to help let us know

They nailed it. God does not make mistakes. Hailey and Caden are just two examples of how God displays his healing power. Only God could know which parents could survive through the things we have been through so far. I could have never imagined myself in some of the circumstances that I have been through over the past year. Yes, it has been a year this month since we got the initial diagnosis on Caden's heart. A year ago this week we found out that something was not right on the ultrasound. By the end of July 2004 Caden's life threatening heart defects had been accurately identified.

As far as the healing, some folks like to give credit to doctors and science. I have found that while many doctors will not openly show it, the most skilled and successful ones are often closet Christians. That has been my experience so far with Caden's doctors. Doctors certainly don't wear buttons announcing their faith, but we have found out that many of the key players in Caden's care are God fearing and give credit where credit is due for the skills that they have been blessed with. Caden's pediatrician is a Christian and has enlightened us to the identity of some of these other Christian doctors. Some we had already been interacting with during the first two months in the hospital and before we even met Caden's current pediatrician.

There are several reasons why I got so worked up over the comments from Hailey's family. I have struggled with whether to or how much to air on this web site at times. Sherry and I have openly discussed it many times. I am sure many of you have thought the same, but I tell you that this little web site that gets well under one hundred visitors per day is touching lives including my own. The story of Caden has brought me into contact with people I would have never met any other way. The same goes for Hailey and her family. Sharing their story allowed for me to find them and gain even more joy and encouragement from what God is doing. These kids are living breathing miracles. If you don't' believe it, then ask me to open Caden's shirt and look at the scars that run from his head to his toes. He has one continuous scar from his neck all the way down and around his belly button, not to mention the numerous other scars all over his legs, arms, and head from IVs and central lines. Only about one in every few thousand children and their families experience anything like this.

Now for the other reasons why I am writing this. I have been very moved over the past two weeks through sermons by Shawn Wood and Mac Lake. I was also very moved as I am always by the First Wednesday service at Seacoast. The worship teams from the Family Life and Summerville services led the praise and worship tonight. That was a treat in itself. The other big reason I am posting this is because I want to share my belief that God is about to show again how powerful he is. Caden is still not swallowing and I believe that problem is about to be solved. I say that with 100% pure faith. The botox treatment might be the delivery vehicle or it might be by pure good old fashion healing, but it is about to happen and you will be the first to hear about it. The subject line of the posting will read "I Told You So". Until then. If you haven't got what I got, then you need to get it. That is God and all the gifts he has already given each of us if we will just accept them. The grand prize includes eternal life and the forgiveness of all of our sins through his son Jesus Christ. Other things your get from God with or without believing is his healing power. I get the comfort of knowing it is going to happen because I believe and have faith. I then get to share it with you so that you can have a front row seat to one of God's miracles.

I hope you are as fired up and excited as I am. Please pray for Caden and Hailey. Please thank God for the things that have already been done and ask God to continue to show his healing strength through these two wonderful children and others like them. Thank God for his protection of me against fear through those that encourage me and guide me though the rough days. Thank God for those who sometimes seem like angels to us when we are down or afraid. One family of angels will welcome their fourth child into this world later today. Please pray for protection of mother and child as the child is born later today into the Young family. These angels are among many who prayed with us tonight.

Thank you Lord for the Pastors, Elders, and Friends of our church who where there tonight and the many nights before. Amen

This was originally posted on Caden's Page but I felt it was worth sharing here.

I had just arrived at the Goose Creek Fourth of July celebration on Monday night when I heard the explosion. It was approximately 7:30pm and we were setting up our lawn chairs in the field by Westview Elementary where many of the residents of Goose Creek gather to watch the local fireworks display. This explosion was nothing like the sound of normal fireworks. This sounded a little more like a sonic boom. It was enough of an odd sounding explosion to have my wife and my sister get a concerned look on their faces. A few minutes later the fire truck came by and turned down the street where the homemade pipe bomb had just been ignited. This explosion could also be compared to a few explosions I have heard while working in an oil refinery in the past.

I didn't know where this explosion came from until I got up Tuesday morning and saw a story on the front page of The Post and Courier. You can read the full story if you go through their no fee registration process here or you can read a shorter version on The State web site here. I learned from the news paper story that I was approximately a quarter of a mile up the street from where the homemade bomb was ignited. An innocent bystander who was hit and injured by a piece of shrapnel was waiting to see the show that I was there to see.

My favorite radio station NewsRadio 94-3 WSC-FM runs a few of my favorite shows. The Casey Bartholomew Show is one that is scheduled to run from 3pm until 7pm weekdays. I normally pick up part of it on my way home everyday from work. The Casey Bartholomew is not my favorite show on WSCFM but I do try to give him a chance everyday. Yesterday Casey nailed a hot button issue with me. He brought up the subject of how teachers are pass kids who may not deserve is by giving the kids nothing lower than a 50 or 60 grades. Yes, this is happening. Most people in the general public never hear about these policies because it would not look good for one of our prize winning school districts to be exposed for padding the numbers. The underlying motivation is probably more likely geared towards the feelings of the children. Yes, one more example of how our society tries to keep our children happy at all cost.

What does this really cost? We end up with a society of people who think that everything should be handed to them because that is what they were taught in school. The Casey Bartholomew Show did a great job of pointing this fact out yesterday. I was so pleased with Casey's subject that I actually called in to participate. Casey had a teacher call in who did not seem to realize that this kind of thing was going on in schools. I could not leave this notion unchallenged. My wife did teach third grade for a few years in public school. Her grade book was checked by the administration to be sure that she was not giving anything lower than a 50. My wife detested this notion in most cases, but was forced to go along with it by the administration of her school. She believes that there are special cases that might warrant giving a grade, but those a few and far between. For instance, maybe a truly special needs child has been put into a mainstream classroom. While I am of the opinion that most kids with special needs do not belong in mainstream classrooms, they are getting put into them. That is a subject for another day.

There were two points that I wanted to make by calling the Casey Bartholomew Show yesterday. The first was to give Casey some support against this teacher who called in who was either in denial or just living in a fantasy land. The second was to say that much of the blame should be put on the parents. The parents are mostly to blame for child who is riding the system and getting grades less than the knowledge and capabilities will permit. The system is pretty messed up, but an involved parent would know what their children is actually doing. Parents should be at every meet the teacher night and should be scheduling regular conferences to follow up on their child's progress. A parent should want to know why their child is skimming by. If their child is consistently getting Cs and Ds then they should take a look at the teacher's grade book. When the teach shows a long list of 50s and 60s then the parent should want to know what kind of work their child is passing in to get these grades. Most teachers who are in the situation of being forced to give minimum grades are more than happy to tell a parent when I child is turning in nothing and getting a 50. Most teachers what to help these kids. They are certainly not in it for the money.

I want to thank Casey for bring up this subject. The Casey Bartholomew has potential, but many times I will switch over to NPR or listen to a CD on the way home because Casey is off on a subject that just rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes I actually think his show's catch phrase should be "Talking about the things Casey really cares about" rather than the actual show catch phrase "Talking about the things you really care about." Casey actually hung u on me the day before yesterday when I called to suggest a change of subject. The subject was really not that bad, but it was rather that Casey was doing a ton of name calling. He was calling teen age girls who get breast implants as graduation presents from their parents some pretty nasty names. He also went off pretty good yesterday on the teacher who was obviously out of touch with reality. Casey called him stupid along with yelling at the guy for a minute or so. While Casey does have the right to defend himself, the practice of belittling callers with name calling is not appealing to me. The fact that Casey does expose some of our society's ignorance and what I call over tolerance is often appealing to me.