Pills and Shots

 I am (almost) 100% ready (medically) to leave in a month and 6 days!

 

I met with my doctor about a month ago to talk about what pills and shots I would need before I left. I had looked at the CDC's recommendations and hoped I wouldn't have to get the 8+ shots that they recommended. My doctor was very excited for my trip abroad and after looking at my immunization records, decided I only needed 4 shots! I needed, my routine shot of Tdap, a flu shot, a meningitis vaccine and a yellow fever vaccine.

 

When you get vaccines they give you a paper that goes over what the vaccine is for, who should get it and what reactions you might have to it. The only really scary reaction I could have was with the yellow fever vaccine. It said that I could be the 1 in 125,000 people to have a sever nervous system reaction or the one  a 1 in 250,000 people who develop a life-threatening severe illness with organ failure (more then half of the people who suffer this side effect die).

 

The side effects of the other vaccines were just fever, aches and redness where the shot was given. I did not have any serious side effects and only had a sore arm for a day!

 

I took a Phlebotomy class last summer and am legally allowed to take your blood so getting shots was not anything scary for me. I'm sorry if you read this and hate thinking about getting stuck with a needle.

 

I still have to find out how to get 30 more anti-malarial pills that my insurance wouldn't cover but other then that I should be properly prepared against most of the diseases I could come into contact with!