Here it comes!…Round 2…plunge, twist and release!…

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Oh, goodness!  Tomorrow is my second round of immunizations, this time including the scary “live” yellow fever vaccine. I must admit, I’m terrified.

Getting stabbed in my puny “years of hard-workout” muscles doesn’t scare me. Anyone that works out regularly, as I do can stand a little pain especially for the ten seconds it will take for Nurse Marcia to plunge, twist and release the four vaccines into my eagerly awaiting triceps.  Ouch! Definitely ouch, but then again, over quickly.
Nor does it frighten me that my arm may be sore, red, or swollen for days. Nope, not that.  But…becoming ill from the vaccine scares me!!  

In reading about the risks of the yellow fever vaccine at the CDC’s web site, the only added risk I may present is my age, over 60.  Darned that age thing!  Then again, if we weren’t so old we wouldn’t be retiring and wouldn’t be spending seven months in Africa.  

I can’t recall any time in my 45-year career that I could have gone to Africa, planning vaccinations well in advance and taking off the required time for receiving the vaccinations, preparations, and actual travel time.


Tom begins his vaccinations at the end of May with nary a worry or concern.  Its a guy thing…toughing it out.
I’ll report back tomorrow afternoon after the big event is over. Hopefully, I won’t have a reaction but if I do, I will post photos of my red, hot, swollen, puny muscles on my pale Minnesota arms. Say a prayer for me!

Personal exposé…

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Revealing one’s inner self is intimidating. Some of us are an open book, some of us never reveal anything about ourselves, and most of us, like myself, only reveal their truest feelings, deepest thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams of those we know, trust and love.

As a lurker in Facebook, various blogs and web sites, and has been an obsessed Internet user since the early ’90s, (hence the name of my most recently lost beloved little dog, WorldWideWillie), I have preferred anonymity as opposed to notoriety.
Over the years my younger sister, Julie, a TV producer in Los Angeles, has asked me to appear in one of her many shows. In life, I am lively and animated. In front of a camera, I somehow turn into a stone statue with a curious forced smile that makes me (and others) cringe.  
Twenty years ago, she talked me into appearing on an episode of a gardening show she was producing. With sweaty palms, heart racing, and voice quivering I got through it. I was so inept as a performer that I was unable to watch myself on the video she sent a few weeks later, hiding it from Tom, throwing it away a few months later. With angst, I awaited its broadcasting, fearing friends and acquaintances would see it and call, pretending to enjoy my “performance.” Thank goodness, no one called.

Us lurkers tend to enjoy the quiet seclusion of our non-public lives, preferring to spend our social time with long time friends, neighbors, and family. Oh yes, at times, we can be quite the social butterflies, preferring to flutter among the familiar garden we have harvested over a lifetime.
So, here I am, writing for anyone in the world to see, about a very personal dream, its adjunct expenses (discussing money was always a “no-no” in my little world), my relationship with my more popular and outgoing husband, my fears (zip lines, vaccinations, bungees, bats, guano, being trapped on an airplane on the tarmac, stuck on a chairlift or tram and on and on). 
Also, I will be compelled to deal with the vulnerability of exposing the many mistakes we’ll make along the way, which invariably will fall upon me, as the “official world travel planner” in this pairing.
Reveal, I will. As hard as it will be to say here, that when we showed up at the supposedly lovely stone house we rented for a month in France, for which we paid in advance, is actually a freestanding 300 square foot vacuum repair shop in the industrial district, next to a chlorine processing plant. We’ll take the hit and we’ll take it here. Stay tuned.

Ouch!…Plunge, twist and release…

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After two hours of being terrified at the prospect of contracting one of many horrifying diseases throughout the world, I left the Park Nicollet Travel Immunization Clinic with my head swimming. WHAT ARE WE DOING????

If we don’t die from the side effects of the Yellow Fever or Typhoid shots, we might die from one of the many diseases for which there is no immunization or treatment! Why tell me, overly efficient, profoundly knowledgeable, delightfully warm Travel Nurse Marcia, who hugged me when I left, that we could die?  

On information overload and losing my competency to make reasonable decisions, I agreed to our taking $10 a day malaria pills (fewer side effects) that we’ll need to take for eight-plus months, $700 rabies shots, $80 for tuberculosis tests, and also, an array of 10 or more other vaccines that will total in the $1000’s. We sure hope the insurance company will pay for these. I hadn’t budgeted $300 a month for malaria pills!

I felt as if I were buying a car from a persuasive, albeit highly competent “salesperson” who was trying to sell me safety features that invoked so much guilt that I couldn’t resist buying. I signed up for everything. Oh, I did hesitate on one thing, flu shots. Why would we need flu shots that are derived from viruses only prevalent in the US? Go figure! What if we went out to dinner with an American couple we meet on a cruise ship who currently has the flu? We signed up for that too!  

The dreaded Yellow Fever shot will be on May 1. I am terrified. Four people died from the vaccine alone (OK, four deaths of out one million, not quite a high risk). I said to Travel Nurse Marcia, trying to reassure myself, “Those four people could have died that day anyway, right?” She reassuringly nodded her head. On May 1, please pray for me. Later, for Tom.

Tom has yet to go to his two-hour appointment. I suggested that Travel Nurse Marcia not tell Tom everything she told me for three reasons: 1. He gets bored listening to medical stuff. 2. He’ll pretend to be listening when he isn’t. 3. He’ll refuse the shots and tell her to take a hike.   

Oh good grief, I can picture my dear husband, sick with some dreadful disease, ensconced inside a mosquito net, with me at his side, frantically trying to nurse him back to health. Sounds like a scene in a movie! No, thank you. PLEASE my dear handsome, charming, funny, adorable, “best husband in-the-world,” agree to get your shots, take your $5 pills with food and SHUT UP about it!

So, lovely Travel Nurse Marcia left the room after handing me my stack of 100 CDC documents to read, moments later returning with a tray loaded up with four, that’s right four, giant syringes on a sterilized stainless steel tray. She gently set the tray down on the counter, leaving the room again. I stared at the tray, my heart pounding so hard, I could hear it in my head. Minutes later, she returned instructing me to get up on the exam table.  

The rest is a blur, rolling up my sleeves, taking a deep breath, feeling the brutal violation of my pale winter skin while each of four syringes plunges deep into the tender flesh of my upper arms. OUCH!!! It felt as if she “plunged, twisted, and released” those horse-sized syringes. Then,  it was over, for now at least. I waited for something to happen. Nothing happened.

After sleeping fitfully all night, unable to lay on either side. My arms hurt as anticipated from the warning by Travel Nurse Marcia. After two huge cups of coffee this morning I’m back to my “old” self, dressed in workout clothes, off to the gym and then to the bank to transfer the 25% deposit in 1481 francs (today’s going rate, which is about $300 US dollars) to the owner of the charming “Stone House” in Cajarc, France for one month beginning April 18, 2014 (yes, 2 years from now). Nothing like planning ahead!

BTW, the itinerary will follow later today.