Sisters Astray

Kim and I received our final vaccinations last week.  Phew!  Glad that’s over, although it was not so bad this time around.  It could have something to do with the fact that I had six pretty painful shots in the mouth at my dentist visit a couple days before, but hey, whatever works.  I did, however, end up having to get an additional, unplanned shot that in turn saved me $60!! 

Rebecca, our travel nurse has been great, but that day, she must have been a little off… 

I decided to “man up” and go first to get my yellow fever shot. Not too bad.  It did sting a little more than the others.  Then, we moved on to the boosters for our previous shots. 

I was supposed to get the Hepatitis A/B combo booster.  Apparently, Rebecca recorded our previous shots in the wrong area on our vaccination records, which in turn caused me to only receive the Hepatitis B booster instead of the combo.  This is where the additional shot of 1/3 of the Hepatitis A booster came in.  BUT! Because it was her mistake, she didn’t make me pay for it.  Nice!  What would have cost me $122, only cost me $60. 

Next, it was Kim’s turn.  There was a little confusion at first stemming from the earlier mishap, but she was taken care of.  She received her yellow fever vaccine as well, and her Hepatitis B booster.  

Kim and I have been debating on which malaria medication to take.  The two options we’ve narrowed it down to are Lariam and Doxycycline.  Both kind of suck.  Lariam may cause nausea, hallucinations, bad dreams, and severe depression BUT only needs to be taken once a week.  We won’t go crazy taking doxycycline, but you have to take that every day (thus carrying around more pills) and the side effects are sensitivity to sunlight and, since we are women, yeast infections.  It’s a tough call. 

The nurse prescribed us 2 weeks worth of the Lariam, which we are currently testing out.  We seem to be reacting to it just fine.  There was a little nausea the second day, but nothing too bad.  We plan to take this in Costa Rica, and the Doxycycline in Thailand and Laos since there is a resistance to Lariam in these areas. 

Rebecca also tossed in some Cipro and amoxicillin for travelers’ diarrhea.  Not looking forward to that.  She also prescribed us some sleeping pills and anxiety medication for long bus and plane rides.  Both Kim and I have had a few transportation related panic attacks in the past and we’d prefer to do without that while veering into an open gorge riding up a mountain with a crazy driver going 60 MPH.  Thanks Rebecca!