Bry and I are under a month away from our last days of work here in the US, and just about a month away from flying out. We have our plane tickets bought, hotel rooms booked, and every few days we check a few more things off our list of things we need to pack. (Yes, believe it or not, we have packed two suitcases already!)
Considering how much effort we're putting into getting things finished early so that we're not panicking in our last few days here, more and more last minute things keep popping up. We have yet to receive the paperwork we need in order to get our visas. We do have tentative plans on going down and getting them, however. Just yesterday I went in to get my Hep A shot. Here's how that went:
I had received an email saying that it was time to update my Hep A immunization. Great. I made an appointment and went in. I got the shot. It was very straight forward. I needed a prescription written, however, so I had to sit for a while and wait for my doctor to come in. When he came in, he informed me that I did not need the Hep A but I did need the Hep B. Did I want to do that today. Wha??? Why did no one check that BEFORE the shot I'm going to have to pay for? Why did I get an email from a nurse saying I needed to come in specifically for Hep A???
So, I got Hep B. Now I'd had a shot in each arm. It's alright, I'm a big girl. Most people that know Bry and I are aware that we grew up without any immunizations. Back in 2008, when we went to China for the first time, we made the choice to get shots before leaving the country. We'd survived 19 years without them, but we figured it couldn't hurt to do it before leaving the country. We each took five shots a piece on two separate visits. Our arms were so swollen and painful we looked buff. I had assumed that this was because of the quantity of shots we had received, but this was incorrect. Having received Hep A in my left arm, and Hep B in my right, I can now say definitively that Hep B HURTS LIKE A [expletive deleted]. I didn't even want to get up this morning because it was so damn sore, and this is day two.
What I don't get, as someone who never did this regularly as a child, is how on earth this whole thing caught on. You're telling me that everyone in the US has had these painful shots and we still keep doing it? How have we not come up with a better way to do this? Ugh. Science, figure this shit out!
Other than feeling sick from shots (which come with plenty of nausea for these girls, at least), we are preparing to take the Typhoid vaccine. Apparently Typhoid is a real problem when you travel to that corner of the earth.
OK, we just started the vaccine! As I type this, my body is deciding what to do with this pill. Will I be nauseous (as the package indicates) or will we be the lucky ones... who knows?! The vaccine is a course of four pills, to be taken every other day. We have been strengthening our immune systems to prepare for the unknown by surprising them with all these vaccines and tests, and my body has decided to join in the fun by throwing a vicious cold my way just to make things interesting. I have worked the last six days straight, with tonight as my seventh day. Normally, this would qualify me for overtime... but those sneaky bastards put four of those days in one week and three in the previous. *SIGH* I'm overworked, and tired, and sick on top of that. Thanks guys!
At my physical last month, my doctor showed me the CDC website so that I could look up which vaccinations we would need for the area of China we're traveling to. Since then, I have been attempting to track down a vaccine for an illness I'd never even heard of before that visit. (Japanese Encephalitis, or Elephantitis as Bry keeps calling it.) I was originally told that I might not even need a prescription for it and that I should try CVS. Well, I tried CVS.
So I called Walgreens. Try the Public Health Department they said. So I tried the Public Health Department. They didn't have it. The phone cut out (thanks Metro PCS) before I could get anymore information from them. My doctor wrote me a prescription. He then informed me that it was a two shot series. We would need to take the shots 28 days apart. The day I found this out was yesterday, July 23rd. Bry and I leave the county August 25th, a Sunday. Even if we found the shot yesterday, it is already too late. Thank you, doctor, for informing me about a thing we could catch but now have no way of preventing.
Considering how much effort we're putting into getting things finished early so that we're not panicking in our last few days here, more and more last minute things keep popping up. We have yet to receive the paperwork we need in order to get our visas. We do have tentative plans on going down and getting them, however. Just yesterday I went in to get my Hep A shot. Here's how that went:
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| Don't worry, Flanders, I won't show any pictures of needles. |
I had received an email saying that it was time to update my Hep A immunization. Great. I made an appointment and went in. I got the shot. It was very straight forward. I needed a prescription written, however, so I had to sit for a while and wait for my doctor to come in. When he came in, he informed me that I did not need the Hep A but I did need the Hep B. Did I want to do that today. Wha??? Why did no one check that BEFORE the shot I'm going to have to pay for? Why did I get an email from a nurse saying I needed to come in specifically for Hep A???
 |
What I don't get, as someone who never did this regularly as a child, is how on earth this whole thing caught on. You're telling me that everyone in the US has had these painful shots and we still keep doing it? How have we not come up with a better way to do this? Ugh. Science, figure this shit out!
 |
| In the meantime, my arm hurts! |
Other than feeling sick from shots (which come with plenty of nausea for these girls, at least), we are preparing to take the Typhoid vaccine. Apparently Typhoid is a real problem when you travel to that corner of the earth.
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| Typhoid is apparently a strain of salmonella. |
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| And, like salmonella, the symptoms are... |
OK, we just started the vaccine! As I type this, my body is deciding what to do with this pill. Will I be nauseous (as the package indicates) or will we be the lucky ones... who knows?! The vaccine is a course of four pills, to be taken every other day. We have been strengthening our immune systems to prepare for the unknown by surprising them with all these vaccines and tests, and my body has decided to join in the fun by throwing a vicious cold my way just to make things interesting. I have worked the last six days straight, with tonight as my seventh day. Normally, this would qualify me for overtime... but those sneaky bastards put four of those days in one week and three in the previous. *SIGH* I'm overworked, and tired, and sick on top of that. Thanks guys!
At my physical last month, my doctor showed me the CDC website so that I could look up which vaccinations we would need for the area of China we're traveling to. Since then, I have been attempting to track down a vaccine for an illness I'd never even heard of before that visit. (Japanese Encephalitis, or Elephantitis as Bry keeps calling it.) I was originally told that I might not even need a prescription for it and that I should try CVS. Well, I tried CVS.
 |
| Try Walgreens. |
So I called Walgreens. Try the Public Health Department they said. So I tried the Public Health Department. They didn't have it. The phone cut out (thanks Metro PCS) before I could get anymore information from them. My doctor wrote me a prescription. He then informed me that it was a two shot series. We would need to take the shots 28 days apart. The day I found this out was yesterday, July 23rd. Bry and I leave the county August 25th, a Sunday. Even if we found the shot yesterday, it is already too late. Thank you, doctor, for informing me about a thing we could catch but now have no way of preventing.
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