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February 29th, 2012

Leap Day

Rare Disease Day

You see, I had this blog post planned for a while. The last day of February is always Rare Disease Day. I think it's pretty cool that this year (and every 4th one) it also falls on a rare day...February 29th.

I was going to explain to you all about mastocytosis, which Keighan has and it is considered a "rare orphan disease" which means less than 200,000 people have it in the USA. We were going to have an allergist appointment this morning to hopefully start a journey to answers. We were going to have his 9 month appointment and I would post how big he is now. I was going to show pics of his flare ups so you could get an idea of what it's like. Tell you all the things he's had triggers to. It was going to be awesome. Was one of the reasons I was working for a while last night on posting the last 2 weeks of pictures. I wanted today's post to be a special one all by itself.

Easiest way to get God to laugh? Tell Him you have plans.

Last night we had just put the big boys down for bed. We were settling into our respective places on the couch. Dan was feeding Keighan. I was sitting right here blogging. We put American Idol on to catch up. Dan's phone was on the arm rest of the couch. It rang. ODO (operating duty officer) popped up. It was a longer than usual conversation. He got serious and was listening. Said he'd get dressed and be in in a few minutes. I figured the duty crew got bagged out and he was the backup and they were filling him in on some details of the case. What he told me upon hanging up I wasn't ready for. You are NEVER ready for those calls.

A Coast Guard helicopter (HH-65 Dolphin) went down in Mobile Bay. My heart raced, adrenaline shot sky high, and before Dan was out the door I was on the phone to the other Ombudsmen to see if they had heard and if not to fill them in. I was pacing after those calls. Racking my brain. Which friends are on 65s...are they/their spouse involved? What could I do? What would be my roll as an Ombudsman? Soon it hit the local news. Not too much time later it was all over the national news networks. All over social media.

Since then Dan and I have both been going almost non-stop in our different roles. Him as a public affairs officer (PAO) and me as an Ombudsman. We are exhausted, but holding it together. He wasn't home until close to 1am and was back on the way to work before 6:30am then not home again until after 5pm. I was on base before 8am today, and somehow managed to get all 3 kids either to school or a friend's house with everything they needed..and even showered myself! It was a long day there. Lots of talking and visiting different shops in the hangars. Swimmer's shop, 65 shop, TraDiv pilots, and a bit of time in the admin building.

I wish this was my first experience of being hit with something like this. I wish it was Dan's first too. We've both been in the aviation world for over a decade each now and have had our individual experiences with it before him joining the Coast Guard and ones we've been through together since he joined (no CG ones where we were stationed though). One of the things I hate about aviation, actually probably the only thing, but we both love it too damn much to deter us from it.

My heart is heavy. There were 4 on board. 1 has been confirmed deceased. The other 3 are still missing.

This is not my picture, I did not create this. I am moved by it though. If is fins and a mask/snorkel hanging up on the hook.

My prayers continue to go to the families of the crew, to those searching, to the families of those searching, to our entire Coast Guard family. We are a small family, this cuts deep.