It's a good thing I work with doctors

It's a good thing I work with a bunch of doctors, and nice ones at that, because the last few days I've needed them. A lot.

Last week the PA I was working with wrote me a script for my anti-malaria medicine for the trip, and threw in one for antibiotics in case the dreaded Montezuma's revenge should show up while we're gone. (How nice - I hope it stays away.) It saved me a trip to my doctor!

Monday I went to the department of health to get all my vaccines. They were very knowledgeable and super nice. However, when I woke up to go to work on Tuesday I had a big red/hot/hard circle around the site where I got the yellow fever shot. I didn't think anything of it until it started spreading. And fast. By the morning the doc was a little worried and said he didn't think that was a typical reaction from the vaccine. So he wrote me for some antibiotics and said if it didn't stop growing I should take them. And one of the nurses drew around the redness so we could tell if it was still spreading.

Yesterday I had a meeting with the Peru team, and the redness had spread even more. I called the nurse at the health department who told me to start taking the antibiotics. And the doc who's going with us (Michelle) said that it looked pretty bad, too. So I started taking the antibiotics and when I woke up this morning the redness was all the way down to my elbow. Great. And it hurts!

So now I have to wait 2 more weeks to finish all my vaccines - the last one is a week of pills, but you can't be on antibiotics cause it will kill the vaccine. Let's just hope these things work! (Bob took a picture of my lovely arm last night, but it's kind of gross so I'll spare you all that one!)

But the fun part is that we all went out for dinner last night after our meeting for some team bonding. Then we went to Costco and bought a bunch of benadryl, motrin, immodium and vitamins to take with us to the clinics. Michelle and I stopped at the dollar store to pick up some little toys and coloring books for the kids in the villages. I can't wait to play with the kids! We got a lot of questions answered in our meeting and some of the logistics of things were figured out - every time we get together it seems more real and closer than ever! I'm starting to get really excited!!