The Best Laid Plans

You may remember last August when I wrote a post about a multiple sclerosis lesson learned from an exercise with the 160th SOAR. Well, it turns out that there were at least two other lessons learned on a different night during that same multi-day exercise. In the interest of time, rather than rehashing all the links to the military specific terms, I’ll simply link back to the original post.

On this particular evening, my team, along with the others in the company would fast rope into a site on Santa Rosa Island, Florida. For those that don’t know, fast roping is where you lower a thick, polyester, rope from a hovering helicopter and slide down it like a fireman’s pole. Well, maybe not exactly like a fireman’s pole. The rope isn’t smooth and you pinch it between your feet rather than between your thighs, since the friction and resulting heat is better managed with the soles of your boots than with your crotch. I would think it would be obvious, but you also grab it tightly with your hands and that same friction and heat makes sturdy gloves an absolute necessity.

Like all things that might get you broken, or worse, it is army doctrine to rehearse it before you do it live. For fast roping, this means 2 daylight and 2 night reheasals, each consisting of 1 iteration without equipment and 1 with. The plan was to hover and fast rope from about 10 feet, so that’s what we rehearshed.

I always wear gloves anyway and the oversized pair of thick leather ones over them made anything close to fine motor skills impossible. Besides that, they were a pain to strip off and stow quickly once I was on the ground, so I decided to do without them. My rationale was this; my regular working gloves had a nice thick palm of synthetic leather and it was only going to be a 10 foot slide, so the heat couldn’t possibly build up that much. I tested my theory twice during the rehearsals and though some heat got through, the thinner gloves seemed to work well. I congratulated myself on such a well thought out and tested plan and when it was time for the actual mission, I left the thick, clumsy gloves behind.

I was the fast rope master that night and when we got to our spot, the crew chief on the helicopter signalled me not to kick the rope out the door because something wasn’t right with our planned insertion point and we were heading to the alternate. When we were there, he gave me the go ahead to lower the rope out and start sending guys out. We were using a 60 foot rope and it seemed like there was a lot less of it on the white, gulf coast, sand below than there had been during rehearsals. No matter, I sent the guys, then grabbed the rope and went out last. Very quickly…..probably right after the 10 foot point of the slide, I realized we were a bit higher, (4 times higher as it turned out), and that the heat from sliding on the rope increased exponentially with each foot past 10 feet.

What I found out later was that the alternate insertion point was over loose sand rather than the paved intersection of the primary and the increase in height was to keep us all from getting completely engulfed by blowing sand. I didn’t know that then, but what I did discover quickly was that synthetic leather doesn’t protect like real leather, burned hands have less dexterity than those encumbered by thick, awkward gloves, and my thinner, cool guy, gloves were completely destroyed by the flaws in my best laid plan.

Multiple sclerosis, because of it’s inconsistent nature, defies even the most careful, (subjective…I know), plans too. The plans I made for an annoying limp didn’t work out for walking with a cane and likewise, the plans for life with a cane, or walker didn’t work out for a wheelchair. Like the example in my tale of woe above, the problems increase exponentially as the effects of MS get worse. Something as routine as going to the grocery store becomes multiple times more difficult to do with each new link in the worsening mobility chain. This is just one example. Others include getting dressed, taking a shower, making a meal, and on and on and on.

The other big lesson for those with MS is that I didn’t seek out the advice of more senior people. At the time of the incident above, I was considered a senior person (mostly by myself) and it was assumed that I knew what I was doing, so I didn’t ask and no one volunteered that I was about to make a really stupid mistake.

I’ve known I had MS for almost 8 years now. It’s progressed very quickly, but that’s still just a drop in the bucket for others out there and I should have asked them early on about my best laid plans. I’d like to think I know a lot about it, but there’s still so much to learn and sometimes I need other, wiser, people to tell me that I’m about to make a dumb mistake.

I hope I listen.