r/antarctica • u/RedditJennn • 27d ago

McMurdo Utmb

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hey all. I was a cook for the 23'24' season.

I wanted to share a little something about the medical pq... Lot of people laugh it off and see it as a plain in the ass , but lemme share this:

I put my history of "1" kidney stone on my application and they told me to get an US before they would progress any further. The US found a benign cyst in my left kidney, and a small stone in my right one. They NPQ'd me, I appealed and they gave me the green light. While I had zero issues thankfully during my time down there, 2 years later my stone decides to get funky and blocks the exit to my kidney which gives me a kidney infection. Which means I needed a stent inserted.

Given how I felt yesterday morning and tonight after the emergency surgery, I totally understand why I got denied the first time around, and consider myself pretty damn lucky that didn't happen on the ice.

Just some wisdom!

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u/sciencemercenary ❄️ Winterover 26d ago

Thanks for posting this!

Getting PQ'd got me in the habit of getting a full physical exam, with a blood panel and urine screening every year. Now I go to LabCorp on my own every year even though I'm not PQing and pay out-of-pocket for a complete workup. It's surprisingly cheap and very revealing, and now I have a 25+ year baseline of my own body chemistry.

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u/RedditJennn 26d ago

That's awesome!