My Flight Journal

Intermission...

I did go out to the school and met with Bill. We walked out to the ramp and he showed me their airplanes and we generally chit-chatted about flying and skydiving and I was surprised at some of the common acquaintances we had. In all, it was a great visit and I made up my mind that this was the place and I was going to start ASAP.

Except for one problem.

I had a kidney stone episode in late 2000. And if your definition of "episode" is "flopping around on the floor like a landed carp, trying to decide if it would be better to throw up or pass out from the pain - while desperately trying not to do both at the same time", then you know where I'm coming from. That stone passed, thankfully, but x-rays showed that I retained 1 or 2 more. I learned that the FAA will not grant a medical to anyone with retained stones (there have been rare exceptions, but I wasn't feeling lucky). It was at this point that I realized I was going to have to get rid of those stones if I was going to realize my dream of becoming a pilot.

So I changed my diet (no more iced tea, sniff), started drinking water like it was going out of style, and getting x-rayed every 6 months hoping to see that the stones had been flushed out.

Without much luck..