Shots!!

Got my shots today and John is scheduled for his on Friday. We ended up having our insurance changed on October 1st and all but the typhoid (which is in pill form) were covered in our co-pay. Yay!! This was great news as I know a lot of you out there posted that it cost you hundreds of dollars to get these shots. I only had to get two shots today (Hep A and tetanus) and will go back in a couple of weeks for Meningitis so that I don’t have too much in my system at once. We decided to not get the polio as our physician did not think we needed it for where we were going and what we were doing. I also got some helpful tips about traveling that I thought I would pass along:

Altitude sickness: He recommended taking the altitude sickness pills before leaving just in case. The only real cure is to go down in elevation once you are sick and he said they don’t have much of a side effect. I was told to start taking them two days before leaving and then three days after arriving. If they make me sick to my stomach during the first day that I take them, I will know to stop taking them before getting on the plane and will just hope that I am not susceptible to altitude sickness. If there are no side effects, why not take it to make sure our special week with our little boy is not ruined by being sick? He also said lots of water and no alcohol on the plane helps prevent altitude sickness.

Antibiotics: He gave us a prescription for antibiotics to use if we got a fever with any other symptoms of infection (stomach, bladder ect.). We are going to fill it and take it with us just in case.

Ayr Saline Gel: He recommended this for the plane. It is a gel that you put in your nostrils to prevent germs getting into your system during the flight. He said we could use it on our little man on the way home as well. Germs like the dry plane air and the more moisture in your nose, the less chance of catching something. Hmmmm, it seems safe so as long as it doesn’t feel like a constant runny nose we will try it!

Probiotic Align: This is for the stomach and is over the counter. He again recommended starting on this a couple of days before leaving so we are not hit with side effects on the plane. If no side effects, he recommended taking the entire trip and a couple of days after arriving home.

So the week before we leave we will be popping typhoid, altitude sickness, and Probiotic pills to help us during our week in Ethiopia. Hope we can remember all of that in the midst of our flurry to leave……..