Prepping for the World: Vaccinations...

I'm not this hairy, honest

I got the shots today: all of them at once, except for typhoid, which is in pill form, and malaria, prevented by liberal use of DEET to ward off mosquitoes. I hate DEET as much as anyone, but weighing the options: permanent liver damage or two weeks of nasty chemicals--no contest. And blast, I forgot to get the yellow book--the record of my vaccinations. I should have some sort of souvenir other than two sore arms. Today, in one arm, I got measles/mumps/rubella and dyphtheria/pertussis/--and what's that other one when you step on a nail? I recall a family trip to the Sacramento river--there's a picture of my father taking a picture of us taking a picture of him with his old boxy camera. While I was climbing around the driftwood on the river's edge, I stepped on a spike. Went clean through my tennis shoe and into the center of my foot. That necessitated a trip to the doctor for one of those famous "T" shots. Oh yes, tetanus. Only good for ten years, unfortunately, and I'm well beyond that; I suspect I could still find a nail in a driftwood stack without too much trouble--I'm talented that way. In the other arm--the right one, I got polio (a booster) and hepatitis A & B, a nod to unsafe drinking water and companions everywhere. Am I being overly cautious? Possibly. The big thrill was I was able to talk the doctor's office into giving me the shots without a "nurse consult" by officiously informing them that all the shots were required by the State Department for my upcoming travels. It's the truth of course, at least according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, which is an excellent source of information on the travails and ailments of every country on the globe. Emailing the list of necessary shots to the office ahead of time was a very smart idea--I recommend it to everyone. So now my arms are festooned with band-aids, and I'm prepared for the wild. Germs and viruses, anyway. The rest will remain to be seen.