Quote:

"Glad you're ok. Tell me more about this free medical . Where can we get it?


At your friendly local Army recruiting office of course...

And I just want to put my 2c in about Army medical care - we get something called Tricare (old soldiers would know it as Champus), which covers me and family when not at a military med facility. Emergency room visits are covered 100%, but the followup is not so easy. The ER (I was in there Sat afternoon) told me to call this orthopedic clinic on Monday and schedule my own followup for eval and surgery. So I call them and they won't take Tricare. I had to call my primary care dr and have his office refer me through the insurance to OHSU. After a day and a half of stupid phone calls I finally get an appt scheduled for the following Thursday (two days from today, 12 days after the injury for those who are counting). Meanwhile my displaced bone ends are grinding pleasantly away every time I move. Add this to the fact that an M.D. apparently has less medical knowledge than the 1SG of a recruiting company, at least where it comes to my ability to work with said injury. So the next day my loving wife forces herself out of bed at oh-dark-thirty to get me up to Fort Lewis (two hours north) by 630 for sick call. Within hours I was seen by the ortho doctor and had surgery scheduled for the following day (also a giant family-fun-size bottle of Vicodin). And my surgeon was excellent, according to my wife who would know - also she was the one not stoned and drooling when he explained what the surgery had entailed...reportedly there were even pictures and props, I remember none of this.
OHSU, I'd still be walking around with grinding bones and waiting for surgery; Madigan Army Hospital, all fixed up stat.

And yes, serves me right for trying to cheat on Cascade Moto.

Oh and the wife doesn't know I pulled a bonehead move on the bike - she already worries about me too much. I blamed the injury on getting run down by one of Portland's hippie bicylists, which actually HAD happened earlier, contributing at least half of my bruises sustained that day.

PS - second break on that hand, the first one being a "boxers fracture" caused by an attack by a wall when I was about 19.

SFC, US Army (Ret)