Dr. said "You're Grounded"

So the doctor gave me one of those stern looks right in the face about this far away and said, well, you're grounded. Didn't think that was something that I was ever going to hear or ever wanted to hear. That was 14 months ago. So I'm going to share a story with you that's been hard to really keep quiet about. A few people know a little bit of the story, but 14 months ago, Dr. Says you're grounded. And I wasn't surprised because I'd already grounded myself 14 months ago. Getting ready to go out on a Saturday night and stop by the local gas station on the way to my favorite watering hole to see one of my favorite local bands. And I go in and I'm like, I'm feeling a little bit funny. And I'm like, man, I think my heart's, like, taking off. And coming from a person who's been lucky throughout my life and always been pretty healthy and because of being healthy, made a lot of bad choices, right? Like we. We grow up being told what to eat, what not to do. I'm not going to preach to anybody here, right? We've all been told and we've heard it and we see it everywhere. How we should look, think, act, eat. What we should do. Do. We all of us follow those things that we're told we should do. Not necessarily. So, again, I knew something was. Prior to going to the hospital maybe a couple months ahead of time. I had this dream one night where the dream, the Grim Reaper was coming up to get me. He was like on a. I was like, on a stairway, and he's down at the bottom and this. This ugly fricking creature that I perceived as the Grim Reaper. And he's not speaking to me, but it's like telepathically, like I'm here to come and. And I can remember in the dream getting really mad and getting really pissed off, and I'm screaming at him and I'm telling him, you know, using every choice word there is, I'm saying, you can turn around and get the you know what? Out of here. I am not freaking ready to go. So that had been playing on my mind a little bit, this dream that night. So I go home, I had an apple watch that I hadn't worn in a while. I thought I'd go home, put this apple watch on and check my heart rate. Because right now, prior to that, never really checked heart rate, never really checked blood pressure, didn't worry about it, right? You're always healthy. And I don't Know, over about a 10 year period, I had one medical examiner who, when I would get my medical, he'd say, you know, when I first go in, my blood pressure would usually be a little bit high. And he'd say, well, sit here and relax and I'll take it again in about five minutes. Which not uncommon. That happened to me in my 20s when I went to the police academy. They take your blood pressure the first day and out of 150 of us, 20 of us had to sit and, you know, wait a little bit and get retested in like a half an hour. And they said, sit there, calm down. So, you know, that happened to me in my 20s. But anyway, the aviation medical examiner I had for a long time would say, you know, you should really talk to your medical doctor about getting put on, you know, low or blood pressure medication. And I've never been a person that really likes to take medication. I'd rather just try to survive without it if possible. Right. That's just me, that's the way I am. And so I'd known over the years. And he even made the comment, well, how much coffee did you drink before coming over here? And I'm just like, oh, I drank a great big large cup on the way over. He's like, and don't drink coffee before coming to your medical. Right. So anyway, this night I go home, check my heart rate, put my watch on. I'm like, oh, wow. You know, it's like 150 beats a minute. So I'm just trying to calm myself down and tell my daughter what's going on. And she's like, well, dad, just sit there and relax. And it wasn't just the heart rate. I knew I was just feeling funny, right? So I called my sister who's been a nurse, registered nurse for, you know, 40 years, and she's like, okay, I'll come over and check you out. And comes over, checks my heart rate, checks my blood pressure, and she says, come on, we're going to the hospital. And I don't remember how high it got, but it was pretty high. And so they, you know, gave me some medication, got everything calmed down and basically the guy said, well, we probably should keep you overnight, but if you want to go home, we'll let you, as long as you're not going to blame me if anything bad happens after you go home. Because like I said, he'd got the heart rate down and blood pressure down. And I said, I'd rather prefer to just go home. And he said, okay. But this was a Saturday night. He goes, but by Monday, I need you to get in and see a medical doctor. And then of course, I grounded myself at that point, right? Because I know when your significance, anything significant changes with your health, you're grounded. You have to ground yourself. I grounded myself after my helicopter accident back in 2005 or whatever that was because I knew I'd been injured. I had a back injury when I got ejected from the helicopter. So I know the process. You know, you got to go through your treatment, get released from the doctor and then usually at that time, clear back 20, some 20 years ago, at that time, it would take three months. You knew if you tried to reinstate a medical after something that it would take a minimum of three months, right? You just knew that. So after my back injury was healed and the doctor said, okay, you can go back to work. My AME submitted everything. The FAA said, Kenny Keller ground himself after his helicopter accident. He's received treatment. Doctors, orthopedic doctors released him. He, he's ready to go back to flying. And he, at that time, my doctor was right. Three months. It took, after being cleared by the doctors, it took three months for the FAA to process the paperwork. Well, that's changed. We know now the horror story is you hear if you're gonna have a problem with a medical, you're probably, you're six months out, nine months out, a year out. So we know this, right, that at this time, the backlog with the FA on medicals, I'd have to say it's a little bit, it's a ridiculous point. And I get it that they're overworked and they've got tons and tons of information or a lot of people to process. But when flying is your livelihood, you know, it's frustrating when you're going through the process. So anyway, I go to see the medical doctor on Monday and he's the one that, you know, after checking me out, he said, oh, you're grounded. And I said, well, I understand that. I grounded myself basically Saturday night. And he said, all right, so we're going to get in to see a, you know, cardiologist and take tests and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, the first couple of weeks I was pretty scared, right? Like, what are we going to find? Are we going to find some big, huge, you know, do I have a heart problem? Do I have a great big blockage? What's going on? And to save time of just boring you to death, no big problems other than, you know, age related types of Things from not living the best lifestyle to no big, huge immediate danger. They didn't find anything big, right? So it was, okay, start changing, you know, back off the bad stuff, you know, start exercising more, which I'm guilty of at that time, not exercising. And so I went through, you know, the. There's a number. There was four tests that I had to have before I could submit to, you know, keep the medical. Well, my medical, that happened in March. So my medical is going to expire in end of May. Well, I was still going through all the tests, so of course I just let it expire because I wasn't ready. Get all the testing done, get cleared by the doctors, go to take my medical for third class because I'm just doing third class. I don't fly commercially anymore. I just teach is all I do. And what was the first issue? You know, you get all the paperwork together and here's the great big stack of papers that, you know, of all the different tests that I've had and all the things that we've done. I go in to do my medical and I followed my own advice. I went and got an eye test prior to doing the medical. And I had the guy give me, you know, my prescription. I updated my glasses so I knew that I was good. Because anytime you go to get a medical, a lot of these, you know, at a doctor's office, they're not eye doctors. Some nurse has given you the test and the one here locally, I always, always, always struggle with the frickin eye test. So I always take this paper in because I've got a fresh prescription, fresh glasses. I take it with me like an idiot, for whatever reason, I had it in my bag with me, but I took it out to look at it or something, didn't put it back in. And I go in to get my medical and he does the eye test or nurse does the eye test. They start doing the stuff and the doctor comes in and goes, your eyesight's horrible. And I go, no, it's not. And he goes, yeah, it is. Your eyes are bad. And I'm like, my eyes aren't bad. I just had an eye test, I just got a new set of glasses. He goes, well, do you have, do you have proof? And I'm like, look at my bag. I'm like, I don't have it. And he's like, all right, well we got to stop. Go get an eye test or go get, bring your proof in and we'll have to try this again in like and. But I'M not available for like three weeks. So after everything I'm going through to try to get the medical back or not get the medical back, I didn't lose it. So I was done. Not denied, I didn't lose it. I just self grounded and then the doctor backed it up of course too. So I get all the paperwork done, go back, I go back to the doctor's office, I don't get another test. I just said, hey, can you please write a letter stating I was just in, my eyes have been updated or you know, I had a fresh prescription, updated my glasses and he gives it to me. I go back in and Dr. Was happy, right? He's like, okay, so you went to an eye doctor. So anyway, my own advice, I've done this video three times over the past 14 years. Like before you go to get your medical, go get an eye test and take those results with you. So if they try to fail you over the eye test, you've got proof that your eyes are fine. It's their untrained people that don't really know with an antiquated machine from 1950. Right. So there's that hurdle. So you know, here's months and months of changing my lifestyle, getting all these tests, making sure there isn't anything huge going on, make sure I was going to be eligible for a medical again, go in and we, we get everything submitted in June of last year, June 2024. So in my mind I'm going, well, hey, you know, back in the day it'd be like three months. But at that time everybody's going, oh God, you're six months out, you're nine months out, you're in, you're a year before you're going to hear anything. So they were right, Right. Like we get everything submitted in June and one interesting thing and I'll just show you kind of what it is here, I'll just hold up to the camera. As you're going through this medical process, you can go to the Med Express website and I guess I'm going to spill the beans here, I'll show it to you. So while you're in here looking at your application status, it starts out with submitted and then it moves to imported, then it moves to transmit and then it moves to in review and then it ends up in a final stage. So the first several stages, it goes on and on and on and not much happens, right? And then when every time that you see it move up, something highlighted, you go, oh, something's going on. But there was one Stage there, where for like nine months, nothing's going on, right? And then finally it hits, I don't know, probably a month ago, it hits in review. Well, I'll show you here in a second. It's in review and it says, FAA needs more information. You're going to get a letter. So I'm like, okay, well, at least we're working on it. And little known fact, the AME when we submit everything, he said, don't be surprised that after they review it, they come back and say, we want one more thing, right? He said, that's just kind of the normal. So when I get notification, actually let me back up story. I get a notification in March. So that's two months ago. April, May, almost June, over two months ago, I get a notification that I got a letter on the way. When it shows, it says, we want you to go back and get your blood levels taken again. We want to see improvement there. And we want you to take this stress test again. Because the last time I had taken it, I didn't make it the full nine minutes because they stopped me at a certain point over heart rate or blood pressure, one or the other. But they also have you stop your medication a couple days before going for the test, which I understand why they do that. But when a doctor puts you on medication, you get things leveled out and they figure out the right balance of everything. Then you start to stop taking it two days before taking a stress test. I get why they do it, but in turn, it makes it weird. So anyway, they want me to do another one of those. So I, instead of rushing out and getting it, I spent two months walking, trying to walk almost every single day. Built myself up to as much as eight miles in one day. Doing at least a mile or two a day. You know, in the beginning, a mile or two is kind of tough when you're not walking and you're not technically in shape. But the more I did it, it got to be easier and easier where I might go out and walk three miles or one day I might go, Ah, hell, you know what? Three, let's go four and walk the fourth mile and then let's do five. So I spent two months building myself up. I had 60 days to get this stress test in. So we. I walk every day. I'm getting ready, still trying to do all the right things. You know, live, live a little cleaner life, be a little healthier, back off the bad stuff. And we, I scheduled a stress test and it has to be a nuclear stress test. But when I get the paper, it says stress test. So I call a couple times and say, hey, the FAA says, nuclear test. You're giving me a normal stress test. And they're like, no, it's just a normal stress test. And I'm like, no, the letter says nuclear. So I even took it back to the doctor and said, look here, you guys saw this copy already. Here's another copy says nuclear. So they go, okay, we got it handled. We're scheduling you for nuclear. Well, I go in and they give me a normal one anyway. Sounds silly. I thought they knew what they were talking about. It was wrong. They call up and tell me, whoops, we goof. We gave you the wrong one. Now you got to come back for another one, the actual nuclear one. So I get that test done, send that in. And so this is just the last couple weeks. So I'm waiting, waiting, and I. And I get tired of waiting. So I write an actual. Just I do my own letter to the FAA and say, look, I had the right test. I've done everything you've asked. Yes, it's only a third class, but even though I don't fly commercially, I fly. I'm still an instructor and I still teach. And we have students that we train from around the country. So we're helping train the newest generation of pilots coming in, helping them get rating. So I understand your workload, but please, you know, could you please speed up this process because nice weather's here. I want to start flying on my own. And I will add, I have been able to keep current, luckily, because I've kept my CFI current and I can fly with Hauser, I can fly with Hunter, I can fly with rated pilots. I can still get in and teach. So in the last 14 months, there's been plenty of times where if the person was rated and qualified and say, the R44, I can jump in and teach, I can ride around, say, okay, show me a normal, show me a steep. So luckily, even though I didn't, I couldn't be pic. I can still teach, I can still get in right around, and that's what I've done to stay current. And then, of course, flying with a CFI like Hauser Hunter, I can still fly. I can get on the controls and fly because they're cfi. But anyway, where am I at in the story? Back to the last couple weeks. So I send them this letter and they send me a letter that's in between, and everything's getting confusing and I'm calling in and they're going just chill out for a minute. Yes, we sent you another letter, but let your letter you sent us work through the system. And anyway, let me shorten up the story. Two days ago, Heather goes check the FAA website. And I'm like, there ain't nothing going on. And I click on it and I see in review something had changed. I'm like, wow, this is kind of crazy. Or actually, it was still in review, had been in review for a couple weeks, but we noticed that there's some more information added. I'm like, okay, they've got my letter that I had just sent, kind of in a rebuttal going, look, I did everything you asked. Everything is right, paperwork is correct. Can you please speed this up and give me an answer? And as we're sitting there, something happens and it says, refresh your page. And I click it and I see final review. And I see this, the status thing changes. And it went from a triangle to this little stethoscope looking thing. And I'm like, oh my God, Final review. And then it tells us, usually you'll have an answer within two days. So we're googling, what's that really mean? How long will it really take? And got excited because it's like, all right, final review. How long is this going to take? That was Thursday. Then yesterday morning I get up and tried to do my normal routine, not get too excited because, you know, is it going to really take a day, two days, a week, two weeks, three months? We don't know. And so I open up the computer and I go to it and then boom, there's that little green check mark, certification decision, class issued, exam date, and voila, I'm legal again. Okay, so the certificate is in the mail. Hopefully that will be here Monday or Tuesday. And yesterday I went out and flew with Hunter and Hunter come up. So that morning I get the certification decision. Boom. I now have a medical. They'll put it in the mail, should have it in a couple days. Hunter shows up, we went out and he gave me a flight review. So we filmed that and it's edited. I'm going to release that video right after I release this one. But I wanted to put the story out here, share what's been going on for 14 months. And I can sit here now with a smile on my face and be happy about it. But I want to tell you that it makes you realize how a medical certificate is a privilege. Being able to fly is a privilege. And again, I'm not going to preach to you because you all know about your health and taking care of yourself. And we know about studying and we know about doing things right and doing things legal. And I don't know how to put it to words other than when you foresay I got my private. Probably in 99 or something. 98 or 99. So for over 25 years, I could get in a helicopter when I wanted and go fly, and go fly by myself and just go wherever and do whatever. And then, of course, been teaching since 2001, when all of a sudden something happens to you, and then all of a sudden you can't go out and be pilot in command, it changes you a little bit. And you realize very quickly that, wow, you know, a medical certificate really and truly is a privilege. And, you know, sometimes we have to take. Take heed of things that we may or may not want to do. Like it. One of the funniest things was my cardiologist is super cool. It's funny now that I have to say, my cardiologist, coming from a guy who's always been healthy, but he said once we got to start going through the process and he's working on the different medications and trying to level things out, and he goes, oh, it looks like you're doing better. And I go, yeah, I've backed off this, backed off that. Da, da, da. And he goes, all the fun stuff, right? And I go, yeah, exactly. And we were giggling and laughing and joking about that. So even the cardiologist knows, right? Like, do we all do exactly what we're supposed to do and we know what's healthiest for us? Some people do, but most. A lot of us don't. And just for him to make the joke that when I tell him all the things I'd backed off and the changes I was making, he was like, oh, yeah, you cut out all the fun stuff. And I'm like, exactly. So I want to leave you with that, that, you know, flying is a privilege. Our license is a privilege. The medical is a privilege. And I also want to relay to you that you have to advocate for yourself. I'm not always really as pushy as I should should be. And some of these things without boring you to death, if I would have put my foot down a little harder, like the first, like one of those tests that I didn't think was right, and they go, oh, no, it is. I should have said, no, it's not. It's not. What this is specifically is telling me how this is supposed to go. Hospital, you're not doing it. And should have said, look, I'm paying you, you know, I got to pay for every one of those tests. And they're expensive, so make sure that if you go. Have to go through anything like this, make sure you're advocating for yourself, because there's not. There's nobody going through a process like this medically. You really don't. You feel like you're kind of on your own because you got your medical doctor over here who's not an aviation guy, and then you got your aviation guy who submits everything to the FAA for you, and then you got your cardiologist. And they all good at their. At their jobs, but they're not communicating and working together for you. They're just doing their part of the job, submitting their part of the paperwork. The FAA is on the other side shooting paperwork this direction, you know, at me. And half the time I'm trying to interpret stuff. I'm calling the hospital, I'm calling the doctors going, look, this isn't what you're scheduling for, is not what they're asking for. And even at the end of this, like that last stress test, the FAA clearly states they want you. They want you during the stress test to go to 100% of your heart. Your maximum heart rate for your age clearly states in the paper. So on my very last test, with all the previous problems, I again, I take in the form and I go, look, this is what I please today. This is. This is the test I have to have done exactly this way. And she said, well, that's fine. The FAA says 100%, but at our hospital, we only go to 85% of your heart rate. That's where we're going to stop the test of your max. And I'm like, but that's not what the paper says. She was, it's fine. That's what we do. That's our protocol. They'll be okay with that. So we did that test. I submitted that test. And when I'm talking to him on the phone, I. The first one of the ladies I talked to at the FA was really snotty. Second woman was really nice and super friendly and super helpful. But the first one says, well, you didn't get the right test. And I go, yes, I did. I've submitted a letter to you showing you that your paperwork is wrong. I have the right test. And then she goes, yeah, but you only went 5 minutes and 30 seconds, and you were supposed to go to 100% of your heart rate, and you stopped at 85 and I'm like, I didn't stop it at 85, that was the frickin hospital. That's their protocol. And she says, well your hospital has their protocol, we have our protocols, so you have to do it again. So that was when I did my final rebuttal letter where I did stand up for myself and I'm not going to read it to you and bore you, but I just basically said, look, check your records, I have the right test and what am I supposed to do? You say you want this, but my all three of my doctors all work through this same hospital, this my local hospital, they're not willing to do it. So what do you expect me to do? I'm not the doctor here, I'm just the silly pilot trying to get back to flying again. And when all of your doctors clear you and say you're ready to go back to normal life and your normal duties, no restrictions, I don't even have any restrictions of any kind other than the doctor said get exercise, just don't overdo it, that's it. I'm not restricted in any form. So once you get the doctors cleared you to go back to normal life, then when somebody behind a desk in Oklahoma City is sitting there jacking you around, it's like you have no idea what I've done. They don't care. Like do you know that I've been walking every day for two months, sometimes as much as eight miles a frickin day. And where before I was doing nothing. Do you know what I have backed off in my personal life? Do you know what I've dietary changes I might have made? No you don't, you're just reading some papers behind the desk. But so my point is anything we do right, like we know with checkrides that I preach about all the time, we spend so much time getting the paperwork ready right for the checkride. And I've been harping that for 14 years in these videos every single I has to be dotted, every T's got to be crossed, every comma has got to be there when we're preparing for checkrides. Well guess what, you got to treat this the same way when it comes to this medical stuff, everything's got to be exact to a T. And in the end I did have to advocate for myself and just say look, I'm going to be in an endless cycle of stress test. If you keep saying 100%, they say 85%, what do you expect me to do? And I said please, you know, review this one more time and please give me an answer. And I sent that last week. Yeah, this is Saturday. I sent it last week on Tuesday or Wednesday. They had it by Thursday. So within a week of my letter, I have my certification back. I have a valid medical and I'm super excited. So again, yesterday we went out went with Hunter. I'll put a link over here for the flight review video. Went out. Let Hunter Gamble, who is hog super fan. The.