The trip to go to the pole starts in about April or May. That's when we decide who's going and make the initial shot at the deployment schedule. I wish I had known that there was some wiggle room in the scheduling earlier on. As it is, I ended up in the Nov-Dec time slot despite asking for the January-February time slot. An artifact of sitting in an office too far away from where the decision was made, I guess. In any case, after a summer of dithering for various reasons, it was time to take the first steps to making the trip.

The south pole is a fairly extreme place. The elevation is about 10,000 feet, the average summer time temp is -30F. During the summer, it is always daylight. It is windy and dry. The only regular access to the pole is via helicopter or transport plane. There is a doctor on station, but you are at least 12 hours from modern medical facilities in the best cases. As a result, we need a fairly thourough medical and dental physical. We refer to this as the PQ (Physical Qualification) process.

The dental part of the process can be pretty quick - just X-Rays if you're lucky. I was not lucky. I still had my wisdom teeth. My dentist had been on me for years to get them pulled and would not sign the waiver that would let me keep them for the trip. More about this later.

The medical part of the process is your normal physical on steroids. They take at least six tubes of varying sizes of blood and run it through 14 tests (many with subtests). They also run a TB test. They run down a pretty extensive (8 page) medical history form. In addition, I got a flu shot and Tetanus booster just for fun (I hate shots). If you are over 40 you also have to do a stress test periodically, as well as a prostate check. There are more than a few reasons why it's good be (just) under 40 I guess.

There is only a limited psychology requirement unless you're going to spend the winter at the pole. If you're doing that, you get a long (at least half day) assessment out in Denver. The only questions in the medical history that seemed aimed at psychology were about how much alcohol you drink, if you feel that you drink too much, if you are an alcoholic, if you've ever been arrested for DUI, and if you have had suicidal thoughts. Curiously, they neglected to ask about homicidal thoughts which, in my mind, are of a bit more interest.

So having survived all of that, I was off to the oral surgeon for the extraction of wisdom teeth. This was on Sept. 15th (Jason's birthday). There the oral surgeon pointed to some areas on my X-Ray and showed me that sooner or later I was going to make his acquaintance. This was somehow apparent to him, but not immediately obvious to me. He also explained that because of my advanced age (38) I was not the ideal candidate for this procedure. I opted for the full anesthesia, so the only part of the whole thing I remember is the needle being placed, an incidental comment that I should begin feeling sleepy, and then hearing people laughing and then checking to see if I was awake.

I was awake, and the parts of my face which were not numb desperately wished they were. I had enough gauze in my mouth to make the Blue Man Group proud, but I was otherwise OK. I didn't have any of the lasting effects of anesthetic and was soon out the door with a few prescriptions and a pat on the back. Jodi managed to drive me home without laughing too much and pretty much took care of me for the rest of the day. All in all, it was't too bad. I got by on Ibuprofen and was back to work on the 17th.

Now here's the funny part. We hadn't heard back yet about the medical part of the physical. This had happened during the week prior to pulling the teeth. So I gave things a bit of time and called Raytheon (the contractor that handles things at the pole) to see what was up. Well, they hadn't seen the medical forms yet, however, the dental was cleared. As long as I was going to deploy for less than six weeks, all was good; otherwise, get the wisdom teeth pulled. My deployment dates? November 10th through December 15th. You do the math. Oh well, it's all in good fun. I called back a few days later and found that medical was cleared as well and I was PQ (physically qualified).

The revenge came on October 15th. On the lower jaw, a piece of bone decided to make its presence felt in the side of my tongue. This actually happened a couple days before the 15th, but it was the 15th when I finally made it back to the oral surgeon. Three shots of novacaine, a scalpel, and a bone file later, all was right once again and I went on my merry way.

After this, things moved quickly ...