Don't worry PQ'ed isn't a bad thing. It means that I have been deemed physically qualified to travel to Antarctica. The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) has pretty strict guidelines for who can travel to Antarctica and you have to get cleared by both medical and dental. My end of July was spent seeing several doctors and a dentist to get all of my tests and paperwork together. To be cleared by medical, I had to fill out an 8-page medical history form, I had two different doctor examinations, and I had enough blood drawn to complete over 20 different tests (that was a lot of blood). I then got a flu shot, a tetanus vaccination, a urine test, and an EKG. The hardest part about the medical wasn't all the needles, it was the fasting 10 hours before the tests. I like food and I tend to snack a lot so to last from 11 pm the night before until 3 pm the next day when all my tests were done was quite a test of my self-control. As soon as I was done I went to the closest fast food restaurant and pigged out.
My sister, Heather, is my dentist and she did my dental examination and x-rays to help me get PQ'ed.
The dental was pretty easy compared to the medical. I got to visit my sister, who is my dentist, and she did a thorough examination and took a ton of x-rays. After completing all my tests, paperwork, and exams I sent out about 50 pages of paperwork to be review by USAP Medical Department. I waited in suspense for a couple of weeks and then I received the email that I had been waiting for...You've Been Physically Qualified. Once I was physically qualified I started getting all of my travel itineraries figured out and it finally seemed real that I was going to Antarctica when my final paperwork and my luggage tags arrived. Now I just have about a million last minute details to figure out because I leave in about 3 weeks. I am getting so excited!!!!
It all seems real now that I have my travel itinerary and luggage tags in my hands. Aren't the penguins cute???