8 Shots Please

A Trip to the Doctor

Recently we visited a travel doctor in Olympia to walk us through the World Health Organization's travel recommendations and help us prep for open water cruising. 

Recommendations for vaccine-preventable diseases are: hepatitis A, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, rabies and typhoid fever. The kids only needed to take Typhoid (since they were current on everything), and Jack got to take that one orally. I, however, had to have Typhoid, Hep A & Hep B. Pat got all of those and was lucky enough to need a Tetanus shot - so he went Zen. All together we got 8 shots.

Here is a video of Alexa getting her vaccines.....while you will get to see her sad face, the conversation is kind of funny (In case you can't hear it all, there is a transcript at the bottom of the page :) 

So we're all vaccinated up! There are a few other mosquito borne diseases in some remote areas of Mexico like malaria, zika and dengue, but we plan on using lots of insect repellant if we head into those regions. This is especially important for Alexa, as she has contracted dengue fever in Brazil, and the disease is more dangerous the 2nd time a person gets it. 

Another nice part about seeing a travel doctor is her ability to write prescriptions for meds that we may need when far from medical assistance. So we have strong antibiotics, pain meds, safe stimulants to stay awake during long passages, diarrhea meds, nausea tablets, sea-sickness patches and even bladder infection meds.

We also carry a paramedic-type first aid kit well stocked with everything from bandaids to tourniquets. Alexa and Hailey are currently CPR and First Aid certified and we are soon to be members of DAN's travel emergency network which offers 24/7 emergency assistance and transportation.

While we don't expect anyone to get hurt or to have any major illnesses, it's best to be over prepared. Hopefully all we'll ever need is the tweezers, to get out splinters from a dock.



Video Transcript:
Pat: Use your legs lex (not sure why?)
Jack: Jibberish....
Alexa: Hi, is this video or photo?
Hailey: Both
Alexa: Oh, ok (weird face)
Meanwhile, the doctor apologized for the room being small and Pat said
Pat: This is bigger than our boat
Alexa: Yeah, true 
Doctor: How many feet is your boat?
Us: 46
Doctor: Well that's pretty big
Alexa: yeah, there are 12 feet for each of us
Hailey: Whew, the space!
Pat: And we all want the same 12 feet
Hailey: And then there's the cat
Alexa: He gets 20 of it
Hailey: No, he gets all of it
Pat: It's the cat's boat
Doctor: I'm sure
Alexa: (getting a Typhoid shot) That hurt 😰
Hailey: Oh, I'm sorry