Three Cheers for Typhoid Pills...

Typhoid Fever.

Yellow Fever.

Malaria.

Traveler’s Diarrhea.

It’s really about enough to make you want to wrap yourself in a plastic bubble and just skip the trip all together, right? But - that wouldn’t be any fun at all. Life is all about taking risks.

It’s usually the months of November and December (and January, February and March) that I literally dread the call from school that one of the boys is sick. The number popping up on my Caller ID sends immediate chills down my spine. To be honest, even just hearing one of the boys tell me that so-and-so stayed home or went home from school with this-or-that is enough to make me spiral into an anxiety ridden panic.

After the trip over to the Travel Medicine office this afternoon, I now realize that there are worse things to panic about than a stomach flu or strep throat (though both are still awful). My Dad, PJ and I crossed another “Pre-Departure To Do” off of our list and now have all that we need to keep ourselves healthy during our trip.

The next two weeks will be filled with a steady regiment of Typhoid pills, taken every other day until we leave for our trip. The Malaria Pills (yes, those too) start a few days before the trip and carry through our entire journey until we arrive back home. I’ll be sure to let everyone know if I capture more of the “little green men” that I saw while taking my Malaria pills in Africa. There are some rather interesting side affects to these, to say the least.

We are also armed with what is commonly referred to as “The Magic Pills”, which are heavy doses of antibiotics that we will only take should the need arise. That…um…Traveler’s Diarrhea thing is apparently….well…a real thing. I can assure you that it will not be a blog post if we have the misfortune of experiencing it. Some things just don’t need to be memorialized.

Passports Approved. Check.

Visas Approved. Check.

Travel Medicine appointment behind us (no pun intended). Check.

The only thing left to do now is get ourselves packed and begin counting down the days until we push off….