Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Things Starting in Vac- and Ending in -ation

So I got home, did laundry, and had a raft of vaccinations in preparation for going to Cambodia. It was really quite the experience. Some of it was "well, while you're in here, lets update your polio, tetanus, rubella, and everything you haven't had since elementary school." I'm not going to complain about being protected from tetanus when I'm going to a strange country to pound nails. And then there were the specific to Cambodia diseases. It was literally dizzying the speed at which I was told and handed information on the various things that can get into your body and kill you. It's fascinating, too. I've read that parasites and viruses are the primary driver of evolutionary change in humans. We've got ourselves a niche where tigers and lions and bears don't kill us much, and we use tools to fight them if they try, but ickle bickle thingies we can't even see can still kill us by the thousands. After doing the paperwork one person interviewed me on where I was going and what I was doing, giving me information, making recommendations and soliciting my agreement or decisions on which vaccinations to take. Then a second person in the next room pumped the stuff all in.

"This is the tetanus. It might hurt for three days." Ow. She put some in one arm and some in the other. There was some rationale for the one that hurt for three days going in my working arm, but I don't recall exactly what it was. I think I managed to get away without a smallpox vaccination. I got vaccinated for two flavours of hepatitis, plus was given a prescription for anti-malarial drugs and I honestly don't remember everything else. After that I had to wait in the office for twenty minutes to make sure I didn't have a reaction, and then I could go home. I need some booster shots in a month and then I'm ready to go, although with the hepatitis I get a follow-up next year and then it's good for life. Which is good, because hepatitis is pretty bad and you can get it from food, even in Canada.

So then I went home and repacked, this time for a vacation. At a LAKE.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

During hurricane Katrina some of the controllers were displaced and others were brought in to "cover" the work while things were taken care of. When one of my co-workers made it on to the short list, as the local union president I had him make arrangements to update his shots. The Health Department recommended about a dozen shots to be in that environment at a price of about $400. Worth every penny for one night of peace of mind. You'll feel the same after it's over. ENJOY the time you'll spend there!

LT

Joanna said...

I just got my tetanus booster too. It hurts.

townmouse said...

Which anti-malarials did you get? Lariam is the one to avoid if you can, though I don't know if they even prescribe it any more.

Anonymous said...

afaik Lariam is no longer used in the civilised world because most malaria strains are now highly resistent to it (plus the vicious side effects, foul taste, etc.).

Anonymous said...

Malarone gave me some really bizarre dreams.....

Critical Alpha said...

Glad they didn't give you a smallpox vaccination...it was eradicated in the 1980s. I'm not even sure if any vaccine stock remains. There are certainly stocks of the virus kept in a couple of places I believe but that's all.