All I want for Christmas is my medical back

Not sure where the best place to post this is but, I thought under lessons learned would be good.

Last February I had some chest pain shoveling snow and went to the ER after trying to ignore it for several weeks. Ended up with 4 stents inserted into my right coronary artery. I waited the 6 months required by the FAA to have a stress test and passed no problems. I had heard over the summer that the medical back log in OK City had been greatly reduced and they where processing special issuance medicals faster then ever. I sent in all the info in August and expected to be flying during the great STL fall weather. I waited and waited. After 60 days passed I finally got a letter from the FAA asking for more info from my cardiologist. Got that sent in and waited and waited.

Beautiful Fall weather turned to cold and windy Winter weather. My AME calls every week only to hear that it was moved up to a supervisor's attention. This past week they could not even get through on the phones. Either no answer or rings right to the answering machine. Then I see the an AOPA article that OK City is doing office renovation and medical processing is taking twice as long as normal. So I wait.

Lessoned learned is that the medical procedure was no where near as painful as the not flying my RV for almost 10 months. Another "sucks factor" is that my insurance will not cover someone as pilot in command unless they have 5 hours in an RV. I do not have easy access to that at my airport. I have plenty of people at my airport that have 1000s of hours in lots of types of aircraft but my insurance will not cover them on my RV. I hate to ask them to go to transition training. If I would have known it was going to take so long I would have tried harder to find more people I could have flown with but I keep checking the mail every day expecting something from OK City. (I actually flew 5 times this summer with a friend who has a RV at a neighboring airport but that was no where near the 3-5 times weekly I had been flying my RV.)

The FAA is supposed to be back in their newly renovated offices tomorrow (according to AOPA) so I hope I can get in some good Christmas flying.

Philip, thanks for sharing all this. I hope you get that medical back quickly, also. If I am ever in your neck of the woods I'm looking you up.

b,
dr

Phil,

Hang in there. It may come through any day. I know a guy at Spirit who had given up and one day not long ago his medical certificate showed up in the mail.

By the way, did you know Ernie Buzard? He was an engineer at Mac-Boeing and passed away in his sleep about a week ago, age 61 or 62. Good thing you went in and had your plumbing checked.

Phil:
A few years back, a friend of the family's, who also happens to be a cardiologist, suggested that I have a full battery of tests done "because I'm at that age and just to be sure". When I took my next FAA medical, I dutifully checked the box that asked if I'd seen other physicians in the past year. This in turn lead to a request from OK City for a letter from the Cardiologist stating that everything was in specification. This was submitted and followed by another request by the FAA for all of the test data, tapes, and lab reports. In the end, I got my medical, but only after about a 50 day delay. This was without any medical issue.
In your own case, take some comfort in the fact that you should be flying again soon. Not so many years ago, this would not have been the case. Just make sure that for future medicals, the explanation be limited to "previously reported" unless otherwise requested by your AME or the FAA.
Good Luck,
Terry
RV9A N323TP

terrykohler said:

A few years back, a friend of the family's, who also happens to be a cardiologist, suggested that I have a full battery of tests done "because I'm at that age and just to be sure".

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Hi Terry - just for my future reference, what is "that age?"

"That age" can be very young. My dad died at 52 and my brother at 32, both with sudden heart attacks.

Also don't fall for the myth that only fat and lazy people get heart disease, high bp and cholesterol!

I know that it is hard when you are a pilot to even go to the doctor because you fear how it will impact your medical but which is worse? Dying of something that could be prevented or loosing your medical for a year because you did the right thing and the doctor's find something and fix it?

To KevinH:
For the cardiologist, "that age" was 55. For the other plumbing, my resident Flight Surgeon recommends a colonoscopy every 10 years starting at age 50 along with a PSA test every year beginning at 50 also. Just for the record, I won't permit her to undertake these tests on me. While the Navy deems her qualified as a flight physician, I'm old school and think there's something morally wrong with my daughter giving me a full physical.
Terry

Hang in there

I had a scare back in 2002 and went in for the angiogram..The incrdible sense that my life was about to change was truely humbling.

Fourtunately I was totally clear and it seems working out 4 times a week had me in very good shape...

I'm so g;ad you got fixed when you did!

Cheers

Frank

Suggestion to Phil

Phil,
It's not clear to me that you have been talking to the AOPA versus just looking at their web site. Assuming you are an AOPA member, you can authorize them to check your status every week. It may be too late for a Christmas package due to the holiday hours being reduced at AOPA offices, but if it were me (it was once), I would call AOPA and request them to expedite your medical. You can talk to an AOPA specialist who does this sort of thing every day. Once you are on their list, they "ping" the FAA every Friday, and the FAA gives them a status on each Airman's medical by the following Monday. Even though they are going through office renovations, they should be able to provide the AOPA a status on your medical.
Good luck,
Don

Call the AOPA if you haven't already. I've had two good friends get the AOPA involved and their special issuances problems were resolved quickly. AOPA apparently knows exactly who to call to get things done.

I had a heart electrical problem about 7 years ago and had it corrected. The FAA wanted an EKG and report from my cardiologist guy sent in with the medical from my ME. Now I go in to the cardiologist before I go take my medical. He writes a report on my current condition and states there has been no change and I give the ME the cardio report to send in just as a precaution. So far It has come back with no hangups. As a side note my blood pressure has always been higher than I would like it to be when I go in for the exam. I started checking it at home several times a day for two weeks. I found out it is always lower in the afternoon by quite a bit. I used to schedule my appointments as early as I could get in before I got dirty at work. Now I always make sure to get an appointment in the after noon like 3:00 PM. It does make a difference. I can go from 150-90 to 140-80 easily by waiting.

On a related note, it is really nice to have an AME that will not flunk you. Have a physical before filing out all the paperwork. If there is something simple, have it fixed before the FAA knows about it. Even if it can't be fixed, there is always Light Sport. Flunk and that option goes away, at least without lots of hassle. Just thinking ahead to my next physical--not all that long a time. And yes, my BP goes up just thinking about it.

Bob Kelly

I am on the AOPA list

rv7boy said:

It's not clear to me that you have been talking to the AOPA versus just looking at their web site. Assuming you are an AOPA member, you can authorize them to check your status every week. It may be too late for a Christmas package due to the holiday hours being reduced at AOPA offices, but if it were me (it was once), I would call AOPA and request them to expedite your medical.

Click to expand...

I did talk to the AOPA people this week and I am on the list that went up yesterday (Tuesday instead of normal Thursday due to th holidays). My AME was calling for status weekly so did not involve the AOPA folks as I thought it was redundant. Talked to the AOPA Folks and they said it would not hurt to have both calling on my behalf.

Just a side note is that I have been told by my AME that I am at the bottom of the list due to being a 3rd class medical. He indicated they process 1st and 2nd class faster due to those people are flying for a living. I have thought about re-apply for 2nd class, which I am positive I have no issue passing, just to get higher on the priority list. Lesson learned is do not think you ought to drop your medical down to a lower calsss after you have had a medical issue. All it will do is lower your priority.

Philip,

Hang in there, it will happen. I have been down the same road as you're on except my AME was useless and I ended up talking to the FAA myself. Once I got him out of the picture it came back pretty quickly. From start to finish it took about 6 months. At one point they kicked the entire package back because the test were too old, I called them and explained someone must have read the dates wrong. They took a look and discovered the error and accepted the test.

You may get a 5 year letter that will require annual testing but once you have the letter it's pretty easy to maintain your medical.

Don't give up and if you get down and out about it, call the FAA yourself and ask what you can do to help. My experience with them was very positive. It took about 6 months from start to finish.

I've never heard of a priority system, I guess it's possible. I don't feel that just because a person flys for hire should get priority service over any other tax payer but that may not be a popular view here.

My Dad used to say 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' so you may want to squeak a bit.

plavix/asprin

It sounds bad not getting your medical promptly, but likely with stents you're on blood thinnner.

Be careful working on the plane - even little cuts/nicks bleed like stink.