"Men
(Women) Wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of
complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition
in case of success."
~~Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922)
The next step in the hiring process is
getting what they call, "PQ'd" (physically qualified). The process of
pq'ing requires the applicant to go through some very stringent medical and
dental examinations. They do this because they want to make sure that nothing
serious is going to happen to you once you’re in Antarctica. Flights are
limited, medical services are even more limited. There is a clinic and dentist
at the stations, but the equipment there to be used in a medical emergency are
what they somewhat consider "rustic." They have the ability to deal
with most minor injuries and illnesses, but if it becomes something that is
considered life threatening or a long term injury, you're air lifted out of
there and treated in either New Zealand or Chile. Or in some cases, your
deployment comes to an abrupt end and you're sent back to the states.
A book I recently read gives an all too
vivid reality check as to what can happen to you if something develops while
you are in Antarctica. I sent my copy to my mother to read, hoping it would
give her an idea as to the journey that is ahead of me. It’s an inspiring real
life story. I finished it in three days, it was so good. If any of you are at
all curious, here is the link:
The great thing is that you get reimbursed for all the medical and dental screening that you are required to go through. On the other hand, if something abnormal shows up, you're required to do whatever additional testing is necessary to prove that you're healthy. If you're serious about going to Antarctica, that is. These expenses, however, come out of your own pocket.
So as you walk into that doctor's
office, you keep your fingers crossed they won't find anything. The younger you
are, the fewer tests you’re required to do. But as most things go, the older
you get, the more your body starts to degenerate, resulting in more tests. Tests
like anal probing. Shudder.
Being a 30 year old woman, I was lucky
enough to not have an insane amount of testing ahead of me. I walked into the
small clinic in Seward and was greeted by a building cloaked in shadows.
Talk about an eerie beginning.
The power had gone out at this end of
town and they had been waiting for two hours for it to turn back on. They said they
would be able to do some of the examination, but I would have to schedule
another day to do the blood testing that I was required to get done.
Eager to get as much of it as I could
out of the way, I went ahead and agreed to do the exam. I soon found myself
sitting in a room lit by just an emergency flashlight dressed in a medical gown.
The medical examination involved the
following:
- Physical exam
- Influenza shot (performed w/headlamp)
- Tetanus shot (performed w/headlamp)
- TB skin test (performed w/headlamp)
- Drug test (performed on a separate day)
- Blood test (Was supposed to be done a different day, but the power finally came back on)
- EKG (machine was on backup battery)
- Mammogram (had completed earlier in the spring before I even knew I wanted to go to Antarctica)
- Pap smear (same as above)
I'm thirty years old. Ever since I was
a small child, I have been hit off and on throughout my life with nasty bouts
of pneumonia. I vaguely remember celebrating my sixth birthday in the hospital
because of pneumonia. In college, it was pneumonia that had me almost bed
ridden for a month and gave me a dislocated rib cartilage that took months to
heal. A few years ago, it was pneumonia that landed me in the emergency room
with a pleural effusion and I was out of work for over a month.
It's always been pneumonia that's
gotten me. I've never had another major medical concern. My whole life I grew
up being told by my mother (bless her heart) that I had to watch what I
did with myself because my lungs wouldn't be able to handle it. When I taught
30 day wilderness courses for the National Outdoor Leadership School and I was
living up at 13,000ft for almost an entire month, my mother said I couldn't do
it. But I did it. I was in the best health of my life.
When I walked into the clinic to do my
exam, I had a slight fear that they would tell me that I wouldn't qualify
because of scar tissue in my lungs from pneumonia. But that was just my
internal paranoia going off. I felt I was pretty healthy. I was working outside
every day as a kayak guide. I didn't smoke, I barely drank, and I ate healthy.
I was active day in and day out.
As it were, my lungs passed with flying
colors. It was my heart that got me. They checked my pulse and the nurse looked
up at me. She asked me if I was a runner or a swimmer. I shook my head. Only
occasionally and not lately because I had been so busy with work. I'd had
little time or energy for running.
She nodded and wrote a few things down.
She then turned to me and said, "You're resting heart rate is at 50 bpm.
That's usually a heart of an endurance athlete."
The words, “endurance athlete” brought
my good friend, Attila Boros to mind.
That was not me.
I shrugged. I didn't know what to say.
I'd always had a slow heart rate. The year before I had gotten my wisdom teeth
out and my heart rate had set off the heart monitor's alarm because it had been
down to 48 bpm. At that point, they had just said it was because I was healthy.
We finished the physical exam and they led me into the EKG room. The power had yet to return, but they decided to
go ahead with the EKG since it could operate on battery backup. I agreed. I was
just ready to get it all over with.
They attached me to the big machine,
had me lie down as still as possible and took the first reading of my heart. The nurse looked it over, looked at me, opened her mouth, and finally
spoke.
“So…the EKG is reading abnormal. I
think I’m going to run it again, maybe there was a “hiccup” in your heart beat
as it took it.”
If there was going to be a “hiccup” in
my heart beat, that announcement would have definitely produced it.
So I lay back down, managed to regulate
my suddenly racing heart, and waited patiently for the dreaded machine to
spit out its results. The whole time, my arrogant brain was convincing me that
it was a glitch in the machine. There was nothing wrong with me. How could
there be? I was perfectly healthy.
When the paper came out, the nurse’s reaction
was the same. I literally felt my heart sink. There was something wrong with
me.
She unattached me from the machine and
sat me up. “Now I’m just going to step outside and chat with Doctor Ursel to
see if he needs to come in and discuss a few things with you.”
Left in the room to my own devices, my
overactive imagination soon was creating all sorts of unimaginable situations.
A minute later, the doctor himself
walked into the room with my EKG results. He pulled up a chair and sat down
across from me.
“Now, what we’re seeing in your EKG has
brought up some concern,” he said quietly.
I raised an eyebrow. “What exactly is
it that you’re seeing?”
“We’re seeing things that we shouldn’t
be seeing in someone of your age and sex. We’re seeing things that we should be
seeing in a 60 year old, obese, smoker male.”
Ok…
My heart suddenly hurt. Did this mean I
was a walking heart attack?
I didn’t believe it.
“The EKG is reading that you have “Irregular
Sinus Bradycardia.” This could mean a number of things. It could mean the
following: 1) your heart is not getting enough oxygen so you might have dead tissue;
2) you could have a blockage somewhere 3) you could be perfectly healthy and
just have something that we call “athlete’s heart.” However, with the results
of this EKG, you would not qualify for Antarctica. I can guarantee you they won’t
take you without further testing.”
I can guarantee you
they won’t take you…
These words echoed over and over in my
head. Something that I had thought would be a cake walk had turned into the
nightmare of all nightmares.
“So what we’re going to do,” the doctor
said, “Is send out your EKG to the Alaska Heart Institute in Anchorage so we
can see if it’s officially anything we need to be concerned about. They will
advise us as to the next step that you need to take, if anything. Once I get
the results, I’ll give you a call, and we can go from there. Until then, I
wouldn’t be too concerned. You’re healthy, you’re young, it’s probably just how
your heart is made.”
With those words, he ushered me out the
door just as the power went back on.
Light had come back into the world, but
it had suddenly dimmed in mine. As I walked to my car to head back to the kayak
shop, I found myself wondering.
The term, "heart break" is a terrible cliche. My heart ached from loving someone
who no longer loved me in return, so therefore you could consider it "heart break." But could your heart really break? Had heart break really broken my heart?
Antarctica, what had once seemed a
grand idea and solution to all my problems, suddenly appeared very dismal.
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