12 February 2004 Click image for full size!
So what's this? Could this be.....BLOOD?? Yes! This is my blood, given in the name of science! It's part of a medical study looking at alleviating the effects of Polar T-3 Syndrome. What's T-3 Syndrome? It's the changes that people experience when living in the extreme polar regions for more than four or five months, usually manifesting as depression, sluggishness, or anger. This particular study is looking at whether or not this is a physiological change, rather than a psychological one in the form of lower thyroid hormone levels. So rather than taking antidepressants like Prozac or other types of psychotherapy, this study is using low doses of thyroid hormone to see if that can help alleviate the symptoms- and I'm part of this study. We've just finished out first set of pills and now it's time for the blood draw. The camouflage tubes are for serum tests and the green topped are for whole blood studies. It wasn't too bad actually, which is good because to get this much blood (there were two more vials taken after this picture) they had to use both my arms. The problem is that we're at altitude (3,200 m) and everyone's blood seems to be thicker since we got here, so it slows down pretty quick after the puncture. I figure they got about two weeks of acclimation from me right here, so I guess I had better take it easy for now!