the bennymay story: chapter 19
Oh, THAT immune system problem
I have now suffered a persistent medical condition for eleven months. I did not have it for the 23 years before Ron vaccinated me. I did have it ever since.
It is 26 Oct 1999. I am a lot healthier than when I was in Hollywood Private Hospital. I talk again with Ron. You will not guess what the medical officer advises me to do. He advises me that I should have another vaccination! Here, in his clinical notes, he records, ‘Discussed with member: advised annual influenza vaccine.‘
I feel like something needs to be done. I feel like I am unable to rely on Ron’s advice as always being in my best interest.
What do I have? What can I use? I can think (Chapter 7). Well, more specifically, for a few hours each day, before I feel too dizzy, I can think satisfactorily. In university (Chapter 3) I studied aircraft accidents, the human body, management systems, and I did my major undergraduate research project on risk perceptions. I have restructured three aviation companies (Chapter 6). Even if Ron and his doctors will not help me, I can think through this problem for myself.
I talk with Ron’s doctors again. This is easy, since I have to consult with them almost every morning anyway (in December 1999 I am still suffering throat and stomach infections). Ron agrees that I was well during 1998, including the week before I joined (Chapter 8).
I need to do something. But first, I need a holiday. On the last working day of 1999, in the morning, I fly a Pilatus PC-9, and the engine winds back on me just after liftoff. The problem was not completely unexpected. The PC-9 has an electronic fuel control unit that sometimes decides to bite on the fuel line, as it were, and stop the kerosene getting to the engine. So, I know I said modern engines are safe (Chapter 2). I should add, sometimes turbo-props can get your attention. The aircraft feels like it suddenly deploys a parachute out the back. It flings me forward into the straps, and the airspeed quickly bleeds off. I follow my emergency checklist, and prepare to eject.
I am climbing out to the east of the airfield. The trees up the side of a hill, toward the escarpment, seem to become a little more prominent in my peripheral vision. The needle of the airspeed indicator is winding anticlockwise—fast—and so are the engine instruments, with their fancy little electronic bars. My aircraft just wants to have a rest. I adopt the ejection posture—the best way to sit in the ejection seat so that it won’t snap your spine in two, its multiple explosives boot you up the butt and use your helmet as a small wrecking ball to clear away the shattering canopy as the seat hurls itself (and you) out into the blue sky.
The needle is moving so fast. There will only be time for a quick Mayday call. It’s more important to “fly the jet” and “adopt the posture” than to talk to the tower. Besides, the guys in the tower can see me fine, and they are not going to miss seeing a three million dollar fireball at the end of their runway. Hopefully they will see me under a parachute, rather than me as a black dot hurtling toward the ground.
I’ll monitor the situation for another two seconds and at 5 knots above my ejection speed I’ll make my ejection decision, so I don’t eject too late.
One second later, at 12 knots above my ejection speed, the engine begins to spool up again. ‘Don’t let that distract you, Ben,’ I think. ‘Focus on the speed. Attitude and airspeed.’
The needle slows a little. A few seconds later, at 5 knots above, the needle pauses, and reverses.
The PC-9 is a good aircraft, and when she is happy, she accelerates. Now, she is happy again. She races away again.
I go away and lick my wounds. I come back to the field. A senior QFI forms up on me (flies up next to me) and visually inspects the gear, which I oversped as I was climbing away from the windback. I land, and go and talk with my Flight Commander. He asks me what happened. I tell him. He listens. Then he says (I can’t remember it word perfectly, but it was to this effect) ‘Good job. That happened to me a few weeks ago. But I was still on the runway, so I just aborted. So, there are the pilots who have oversped the gear; and there are those who are yet to. Now you’ve oversped the gear, learn your lesson, and don’t do it again.’ Then he asks, ‘Can you leave that behind and focus on your flight test now?’ ‘Yes, Sir,’ I say. ‘Good. The Snow is in his office waiting for you. Good luck. Dismissed.’
The SNO is the Senior Naval Officer. I do my flight test with him. I think everyone else has gone home already for Christmas. He gives me a practice emergency to finish off the flight. Due to my previous flight, I fly so conservatively that I almost hear him snoring with boredom in the back seat. I land. He passes me, and congratulates me (mainly on handling the real emergency that morning). He sends me off to my QFI (Qualified Flying Instructor), who is waiting for me, and also waiting to hit the town to begin his Christmas holidays.
My QFI, an F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilot, and I get on well. The day before (Thursday afternoon) he and I finished our lesson, so he took over and decided to show me some aerobatics, for a bit of fun, oh, and, umm training, of course. As we were doing that, at about 319 knots (589 kilometres per hour), heading South in the later afternoon with the sun drooping down toward the Indian Ocean, I suddenly see a red flash emerging from the glare. An aircraft. I reach for the stick and begin to call out ‘Aircraft’ but before I could finish ‘air-’ he raced below us, the pilot’s helmet pointed down at his instrument panel, clearly not looking where he was going, and must have missed us by about twenty five feet vertical distance.
Suffice to say, the past 24 hours have been fairly busy for me, and both us are ready for a holiday.
‘Don’t think planes,‘ he says. ‘Don’t study planes. Don’t read about planes. Don’t talk planes. If someone talks to you about planes, ignore them. You’ve been working hard. You’re going well. You need a break. Enjoy it. You got a girl somewhere?‘ I tell him I like a girl in Germany. ‘Get there!‘ he says. (‘Get there’ is his favourite formation flying expression.)
I phone an airline. The next day I fly out. My friend plays for the Berlin Philharmonic, and after NYE at das Brandenburger Tor, we spend a week in a castle near Dresden. In the castle, Burg Hohnstein, I listen to fabulous rehearsals of Mahler’s ninth. I am completely relaxed. I am not thinking about aircraft. It is great. Of course, my health is exactly the same, but, what can you do?
So, what can I do? How do I solve this medical problem? It seems nobody is helping me. I know that I became sick when Ron vaccinated me. I must educate myself. I get back to Australia, and look up what are the possible reactions to the vaccinations I had. I find that vaccinations sometimes damage the vaccinee’s immune system. I take this finding to Ron. Ron appears uninterested, and tells me there is nothing wrong with my immune system.
I find a LOT of information on the internet about vaccinations. Much of what I find is very unbalanced, provocative, and based largely on anecdotes, urban legends, uncontrolled anger and your off-the-shelf Antiestablishmentarianism. I want to give fair consideration to things I know little of nothing about, such as certain ‘alternative medicines’. Unfortunately, the first paragraph or two usually impresses me that the writer is more interested in saying how bad everyone else is, and I lose interest. I figure, if their product is that good, they should support their claims in ways more acceptable to our societal- and scientific communities. I feel I am able to rely much on certain alternative medicines. That is okay. It doesn’t hurt to learn what to exclude.
I need someone to test whether the vaccines really did screw up my immune system. I need Ron to send me to an immunologist.
To convince Ron, however, I need some more weight on my side, to tip the balance. Fortunately, my Flight Commander, let’s call him Pilot Ron, was unhappy with my days TMUFF. TMUFF is Temporarily Medically Unfit For Flying. This is good. What is better is that Pilot Ron is a Squadron Leader (SQNLDR) who outranks the young Flight Lieutenant (FLTLT) Dr Ron.
Pilot Ron, Dr Ron, and I meet in the hospital at Pearce (HSFPEA) in February 2000. Pilot Ron brought a printout of the number of days I have been TMUFF and of those very days I have been well. The highlighting seems to yell out, ‘Unacceptable’. Pilot Ron shows his paper, and demands answers. Doctor Ron turns to me, and asks for my comment. I think, he is going to regret that choice, and I confess I’ve been asking to go to an immunologist for months, but Dr Ron will not let me. Dr Ron, of course, spews forth his rote response about taxpayer’s funds. Pilot Ron says Ron is spending six million dollars of this guy, and you’re worried about a couple of hundred bucks to send him to a specialist! That answer is unacceptable. He continued, Medical needs to do something to either get this guy well, of get him out of the RAAF. Pilot Ron then politely suggested that Ron sends me to an immunologist.
On 09 February 2000, after our eleven a.m. meeting, Dr Ron records my loopy request as:
(Dx = diagnosis)
I am surprised that Ron didn’t send me to an immunologist in November 1998—the regulations show that would be the time to do it. However, now that I’ve waited fifteen months, I am equally surprised Ron is considering it. Not only that, but I am also annoyed Ron is taking so long with this process. My Commanding Officer (CO) is unhappy too. On 28 March 2000, CO writes to the Senior Medical Officer (SMO) about my situation:
Little does the CO know, Ron is going to drag this on for at least another four years! And, Ron is going to make sure that I never get promoted, and never get the pay rise he said he would give me. CO and SADMINO tell me there is nothing my unit can do, as this is a medical situation.
Unfortunately my recurrent illnesses, and consequent TMUFF days, are so great that I am unable to complete Pilot Course with my fellow course mates. So, Ron ‘back-courses’ me.
Ron maintained his position. There was nothing really wrong with me. The vaccinations caused no problems. I had no problems. The illnesses were all coincidental.
I consult with a specialist, in Perth—an immunologist. He does some allergy, skin tests. I have a minor response. He does some other tests. He thinks I have an immunodeficiency. He tries something. It doesn’t work. He does some more tests. He diagnoses me with an Immunoglobulin (Ig) deficiency (class G, subclass 1). So now my medical condition has a name. An IgG1 deficiency. The specialist then decides I need blood infusions every three weeks.
‘Where an employee suffers an injury resulting in incapacity of 28 days or more or a permanent impairment, the Department is required to provide and to manage a rehabilitation program which will assist the employee to attain the greatest possible recovery and to return to work as soon as possible. The responsibility for rehabilitation of ADF members rests with the respective service.’ (DI (G) PERS 27 – 1 paragraph 36).
‘ADF Commanders are responsible for the health and welfare of ADF members under their command. The provision of suitable occupational rehabilitation for personnel who continue to serve after suffering significant illness or injury is part of an ADF Commanders’ broader personnel management responsibilities.’ (SAFETYMAN)
‘The single Services are responsible for the implementation of personnel management procedures. They are responsible for the review of a member’s continued suitability for employment in the ADF and their reallocation / retraining where possible. Such decisions are taken in consultation with the member, and the member’s Commander and the ADF health providers,’ (SAFETYMAN).
I became sick in November 1998. It is now June 2000. Finally it appears Ron is now reacting and attempting to fix the problems caused by my adverse drug reactions.
The good news is I will get treatment. On 30 May 2000, my specialist writes:
