Written in Cochin, Posted from Kumily, Kerala, India
In case you're curious, and even if you're not, we wanted to let you know how we're doing now that we're over halfway into this journey. So we categorized some of the top-priority items and wrote up our thoughts on them. Basically, it's a list of all of the things we had concerns about, most of which we shared with you, and how we're dealing with them so far. Without further ado, our status report:
Accomodations: After our disgusting four-nights-stay at Big John's Backpacker Hostel in Bangkok, Thailand, our standards increased considerably. We decided that we don't need to be hardcore backpackers and that we outgrew dorm rooms sometime around the day we graduated from college (and actually before, but we were RAs, so we couldn't really knock them). Dorms are fine for single travelers, but hard for couples. When we can't sleep near each other, we're not as nice to each other the next day. And then there's the fact that in a dorm room, we're 10-12 years older than our bunkmates. We now pay an average of $18 a night for a room. Sometimes that gets us AC, sometimes it doesn't. We are loathe to pay more than $20 a night and when we do, we are splurging. That $25 per night room better have AC and sheets so clean we can sleep on them without wearing pajamas!
Water: Still not drinking it
Vegetables and Fruit: We TRIED not eating raw vegetables. We really did. But we can't. So we are. So far, we haven't eaten any that were grown in someone's poop. And in fact, the vegetables we've eaten are delicious -- they actually taste like actual homegrown vegetables. And fruit? Did you know that there are over 150 types of bananas? Neither did we. We've eaten about 8 different kinds and so far, they're all delicious.
Cravings for American Food: The cravings are high but not presently as high as they were in Southeast Asia. Which is in part due to the fact that we caved and ate McDonald's when we were in Bangkok that second time (a cheeseburger never tasted so good). Since we love Indian food and we've eaten it loads of times before now, it tastes a little bit more like home than Beef Noodle Soup with Fish Balls tasted. On the other hand, when we're watching an episode of Friends, we occasionally drool when we see what they're eating. Especially if it's pizza. Oh, pizza.
Mosquito Bites: I have about 32 visible bites. Matt has about 10. But the ants love him and stay away from me. We use DEET to try to scare away the bugs, but really using it is more about the psychological factor of feeling like we're DOING something, since the bugs don't seem to care whether we're DEETed or not. Thank goodness for Malarone.
Tummies: For the most part, our tummies are fine. We both suffered a bit in Southeast Asia and for that period of time, neither one of us could handle the local cuisine. But we got through it and so far, India has been kinder than we expected. Though the mantra "if it's spicy on the way in, it will be spicy on the way out, too" still holds. And is repeated often. Except for Matt's current aversion to rice, we're loving the food. And when he's sick of rice, there are a host of breads to make up for it.
Crohn's: So far, so food. When my stomach was bothering me in Cambodia, I had that feeling of "here it is, this is it, my intestines hate me so much that we're going to have to go home so I can go back on steroids or something." But then I remembered the combined wisdom of Andy and my GI doctor: sometimes an upset stomach is an upset stomach. I concluded that mine was a classic case of "you've been in Southeast Asia for a month" and took it easy and listened to my body and made no rash decisions to change our itinerary. I ate a lot of sandwiches. By the time we got back to Bangkok, I was ready to eat street meat again.
Traveling as a Couple: Sometimes it's harder, but most of the time, it's easier. A lot easier. There are times when we bicker, but just like at home, 99.9% of the time, it's because we're tired or hungry. We've had an actual fight on two occasions, both while we were in Vietnam, and both within a day of each other. But both times we had the time to actually talk it out which is something that's actually easier here, given that we HAVE to spend 24/7 together. In fact, I think that's been the biggest gift of the whole trip -- the time we've had together. We realize that those opportunities will get harder to find as we get older. We're doing our best to savor it now. And I think that's makig it so that we're a little gentler with each other. For the first time in a long time, we have a chance to actually understand where the other is coming from.
That Thing you Don't Talk about with your Parents: Which is why I'm not going to talk about it here either, since our parents read this blog. Suffice it to say that when you have the time to actually understand where the other is coming from, when you know exactly what their day was like because it was your day too, and when at the end of that day you're still excited to hear their perspective on something you both experienced, well, then you have time to... you know.
Grooming and Beauty: We're generally dirtier here than we are at home. We shower every day (though much faster than we do at home, particularly when there's no hot water) but Matt shaves about once a week and even though I shopped diligently for the perfect all-in-one makeup pallette, I have yet to use it. When it's too hot to wear my hair down, it's too hot for mascara. Our hair! It's long, so very long! And my hair gel totally hates me -- it's the one thing that keeps exploding.
And if you're still reading, then you're probably the only person interested in our superlatives list, which is here:
Lowest Price for a Decent Room: $6, Julie Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Cheapest Big Meal: $3 for two, an all-veg place in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Tea: Toss-up between the black tea in Sri Lanka and the Chai in India
Best Night Train: Thailand (Bangkok to Chiang Mai)
Cheapest Laundry: 10,000 kip/kilogram in Laos
Cheapest Western Food: Two Cheeseburgers, Two fries, Two Cokes = $5 in Saigon, Vietnam
Best Coffee: Toss-up between Sri Lanka and Vietnam
Best Pool: The Angkor Palace Resort in Cambodia
Best Rickshaw Driver: Manish in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Night Market, So Far: Luang Prabang, Laos
And if you've gotten this far, then WOW, do you love us. Is there anything else you're just burning to know? Anything you wish I would have written about but didn't? If there is, let us know in the comments section and we'll write it up specially for you with love.
Showing posts with label take your vitamins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label take your vitamins. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
I Caught the Bug
Posted from Hoi An, Vietnam
Sadly, it's not the traveling bug. Nope. On the second morning of our trek through the hills east of Luang Prabang, our group sat down to a quick breakfast in the Khmu village we stayed in overnight. Our guides had prepared a plate of fried eggs and a baguette for each of us. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling quite up to snuff. The night before we'd all sat around the table, drinking some sweet, semi-fermented rice liquor the villagers down by the gallon. Being a gracious guest, I accepted what our guides put before us, again and again and again. Although I went to bed with a mostly clear head, I simply could not fall asleep. Not one wink. So when the guides set our breakfast plates in front of us, I was only too eager to dig in. But there was something about those eggs. I don't know if it was the slightly bitter, smoky flavor from the cooking fire or the fact that the eggs tasted a bit like our dinner from the night before, but something about those eggs did not sit well.
When we arrived back in Luang Prabang, I figured that a little Western food would be just what the doctor ordered. The others were having pizzas and curries, and I decided to take a stab at an American classic: the cheeseburger. But even that didn't make it down. The meat was too salty, and the cheese was a creamy, French cheese. Yech! So Western food was out. I tried Lao food, but that was a non-starter. It seemed like no matter what my eyes wanted to eat, my stomach had a vicious and violent difference of opinion.
Still eating very little, we left Lao and arrived in Hanoi. At least that night, I was able to try a Vietnamese dish of grilled, marinated pork and noodles, and I managed to enjoy most of it. The next morning, however, our guesthouse served us each a baguette with a plate of fried eggs. I tried. I really tried, but the eggs were too much. Instantly, the smell and the taste of the eggs from the village filled my senses, and I couldn't do it. I munched on my baguette, trying to forget that smell.
Over the course of the past day or so, my stomach has slowly returned to normal. Except that now I have an almost allergic reaction to the taste or smell of eggs in my food. Be that as it may, I'm still taking it easy on the food adventures, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be a little wiser when accepting drinks from strangers.
Sadly, it's not the traveling bug. Nope. On the second morning of our trek through the hills east of Luang Prabang, our group sat down to a quick breakfast in the Khmu village we stayed in overnight. Our guides had prepared a plate of fried eggs and a baguette for each of us. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling quite up to snuff. The night before we'd all sat around the table, drinking some sweet, semi-fermented rice liquor the villagers down by the gallon. Being a gracious guest, I accepted what our guides put before us, again and again and again. Although I went to bed with a mostly clear head, I simply could not fall asleep. Not one wink. So when the guides set our breakfast plates in front of us, I was only too eager to dig in. But there was something about those eggs. I don't know if it was the slightly bitter, smoky flavor from the cooking fire or the fact that the eggs tasted a bit like our dinner from the night before, but something about those eggs did not sit well.
When we arrived back in Luang Prabang, I figured that a little Western food would be just what the doctor ordered. The others were having pizzas and curries, and I decided to take a stab at an American classic: the cheeseburger. But even that didn't make it down. The meat was too salty, and the cheese was a creamy, French cheese. Yech! So Western food was out. I tried Lao food, but that was a non-starter. It seemed like no matter what my eyes wanted to eat, my stomach had a vicious and violent difference of opinion.
Still eating very little, we left Lao and arrived in Hanoi. At least that night, I was able to try a Vietnamese dish of grilled, marinated pork and noodles, and I managed to enjoy most of it. The next morning, however, our guesthouse served us each a baguette with a plate of fried eggs. I tried. I really tried, but the eggs were too much. Instantly, the smell and the taste of the eggs from the village filled my senses, and I couldn't do it. I munched on my baguette, trying to forget that smell.
Over the course of the past day or so, my stomach has slowly returned to normal. Except that now I have an almost allergic reaction to the taste or smell of eggs in my food. Be that as it may, I'm still taking it easy on the food adventures, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be a little wiser when accepting drinks from strangers.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Wherein I Talk About Traveling With Crohn's Disease
Many of you already know that when I was 19, a surly gastroenterologist with no bedside manner whatsoever diagnosed me with Crohn's disease. The diagnosis was actually welcome news to me, as I'd spent the previous four months or so eating a diet of white rice and water, as it seemed to be the only food that didn't, uh, move right through me. I'd lost about 15+ pounds in those four months, and for what was my then-quite thin frame, that was a lot of weight to lose. It was enough that people, my boyfriend at the time included, would try to entice me to eat that which I knew I could not digest. I didn't know WHAT was wrong with me exactly, but I knew for certain that something was wrong, and that I was not anorexic.
I have lived with Crohn's for 10 years now and have been very, very lucky. I have never had surgery, and I spent only the first two years after my diagnosis on and off the steroids that I would now refuse. (Boy did I gain that 15 pounds back, and then some! Have you SEEN these hips that I sport?!) While I still watch what I eat (absolutely no spinach or corn, avoid the spine of most lettuces, keep a low-fat diet, avoid fried things), I have been lucky that I have been ABLE to eat. I eat regular meals, I obviously enjoy food a great deal (there's those hips again), and I haven't, knock-on-wood, had a serious flare-up since my initial diagnosis. I have had bouts of uncomfortableness, but nothing that rendered me mute from pain, crouching on the floor of my dorm room, as I did night after night in 1998.
In November 2005, at the advice of my most favorite GI doctor, I went off all of my meds. This was a huge triumph for me, a total coup, as one of the most debilitating and annoying things about my diagnosis was the Pentasa -- a drug that helps control the inflammation, but requires an irritating 16 pills a day. The second most debilitating thing about my Crohn's diagnosis is that I still don't know how it will affect me when I try to get pregnant, a fact I think about too often. The research isn't good (surprise, surprise), in that there hasn't been a whole lot of research. Most of the information I've learned about it, both from my own physicians and the terrifying amount of information available online, gives the 30-30-30 rule for Crohn's patients who are also trying to conceive: 30% of patients will get better, 30% of patients will get worse, and 30% of patients will stay the same. Getting worse, obviously, is to be avoided, as Crohn's patients who are flaring during their pregnancy suffer an increased risk of miscarriage. Andy assures me that the 30-30-30 statistic is a doctor's way of telling me "we have no clue what will happen to you, so here's some information that's not really meant to be reassuring, but is simply meant to be information." Ah. It's so clear now. Riiight.
So I went off my meds in November 2005 because, as my doctor and I thoughtfully concluded, I was not pregnant, nor was I intending to become pregnant any time soon. We agreed that going off the meds would be a good experiment, since, if I could tolerate it, it would be nice to be off the meds when I was actually attempting to become pregnant.
For the first several months, I felt great. I wasn't taking any medications for Crohn's at all, and I was eating basically what I wanted to eat, still avoiding the high-fat foods and the ever-evil spinach. But a few months after we moved to Pittsburgh, I started to experience some symptoms. They were typical symptoms, nothing too awful, but they scared me enough to tell Matt. And Matt was scared enough to encourage me to find a GI in Pittsburgh. My GI (the first female GI I'd had!) wanted to put me on meds right away, but I told her that I'd rather know for sure that I was flaring before I took meds, and even though this meant yet another colonoscopy, I really wanted to know for sure before I went back on meds. (As an aside, I've had four colonoscopies in my short life! So if you're over 50 and you haven't yet been checked for polyps in your colon, you will get no sympathy from me. Go get yourself a goddamn colonoscopy and get checked for polyps, since colon cancer can be detected early!) I was also confident that the colonoscopy would show that I was simply overreacting, that my so-called symptoms were a manifestation of how much I hated Pittsburgh, and not a manifestation of how much my intestines hate me.
Of course, if you know me at all, or you know even a little bit about Crohn's disease, or even a little bit about mental health, then you know that sometimes, when you hate something in your life, your body decides it's not too thrilled with you either. In short, the colonoscopy showed angry and ferocious ulcerations in my terminal ileum. So the pain in my belly wasn't just caused by the pain in my psyche, but it did mean I'd have to go back on meds.
I was understandably sad. And also a lot more vocal about my discomfort. The final admission of the fact that I do, actually, suffer from Crohn's disease, always occurs when I tell my dad how I'm feeling. The mixture of sadness and concern in his voice is something I'd always like to avoid, so I put off telling him until I feel that I absolutely have to. I use my telling him as a measure of how strong I think I am. If I can tell my dad that I'm sick, then I can deal with the fact that I'm sick. So I started back on my meds (Pentasa now comes in a form where you only have to take 8 pills a day) and braced myself for that phone call. My dad, obviously concerned, said, "oh honey, I'm sorry." And then, almost without missing a beat, "what about your trip?"
It hadn't occurred to me that my Crohn's would affect our trip. That was probably partly because I didn't even want to stop to think about whether it would affect our trip, but mainly because I generally labor under the misbelief that my Crohn's will miraculously disappear just as quickly as the flare presented itself. Of course, this is never the case when you have a chronic illness. Otherwise they wouldn't call it an illness, or even better, chronic.
I talked it over with Matt. I didn't want the Crohn's to affect our trip.
"We're still GOING on this TRIP," I informed him, sounding like that 4-year-old brat he DIDN'T fall in love with.
"Yes, of course we're still going on this trip," he said. "We just need YOU to talk to your doctor about the fact that we're going on this trip. She can probably help us."
Duh.
In between that conversation and talking to my doctor, I talked to everyone else. Julie was worried I'd get really sick, and confided that Cris was really worried too. Andy echoed Matt's advice about talking to my doctor, and other Crohnies (friends with Crohn's) expressed concern. The Internet told me that I could definitely travel with Crohn's. To France. My dad was convinced I'd probably literally crap my brains out, a concern I expressed to my physician when we met.
"You're not going to die," she told me. "But don't be an idiot."
Did I mention that I like this new doctor? She's matter-of-fact and interesting. She also likes to tell me all about the science behind Crohn's Disease and Crohn's treatment. It makes me feel like she thinks I understand what she's talking about. I appreciate this.
Don't be an idiot. This is good advice. Generally, but specifically here, where the food is different and the water is not potable. So what did I do to prepare for going on this trip? Well for starters, I got all the vaccines I'd need. I didn't get any live vaccines, since Crohn's can leave you somewhat immunosuppressed, and it seemed unwise to inject myself with something that was alive and crawling. I filled my Pentasa prescription so that I'll have enough Pentasa to last me for the entire time we're gone, with a little extra for good measure. I had a doctor I know write me prescriptions for things that could go wrong with my intestines, and I double-checked those prescriptions with my GI doctor. I had a long conversation with my GI doctor about the trip, and she reminded me that as a Crohn's patient, I will most likely be quick to assume that anything that goes wrong or hurts is related to my Crohn's. She reminded me that everyone who travels in a country where the water isn't potable has a belly ache from time to time. She reminded me not to be an idiot. She elaborated on this to mean that I shouldn't under any circumstances, drink the water. I can eat street food, but only if it's piping hot. In India, I can eat vegetarian street food but not meat, and in the rest of Southeast Asia, I can probably eat whatever. I should stay away from vegetables that would ordinarily look hard to digest, so basically, things that look like spinach. And I should try new foods, take my meds religiously, and be honest with myself about my body.
So far, so good. I have had a belly ache from time to time this week, but it hasn't been anything that's kept me in the bathroom for longer than usual. I've obviously been trying all kinds of new foods, but I'm staying away from things that look like they'll hurt me. I have only had bottled water to drink. Well, bottled water and beer, but whatever.
In the months to come, I hope to keep you guys updated on the progress of my tummy. Not because I think you're curious, but because I want other Crohnies out there to know that it IS possible to travel to Asia with Crohn's disease. It's possible to spend 31 hours on a plane with Crohn's disease. It's possible to carry around a heavy-ass backpack with Crohn's disease. It's possible to eat new and interesting food with Crohn's disease. And so far, it's possible to be diligent about taking your meds, and possible to find a bathroom when I need it, even when though I don't speak the language and no one in my host country has even heard of Crohn's disease. I don't expect my Crohn's not to be present here; it is, after all, a part of who I am, a chronic part. But I expect it to be as present as it usually is, which is to say that I live with it, and I respect it, but I respect the rest of myself just as much if not more, and I will do my best not to limit my experiences here because of my disease.
I have lived with Crohn's for 10 years now and have been very, very lucky. I have never had surgery, and I spent only the first two years after my diagnosis on and off the steroids that I would now refuse. (Boy did I gain that 15 pounds back, and then some! Have you SEEN these hips that I sport?!) While I still watch what I eat (absolutely no spinach or corn, avoid the spine of most lettuces, keep a low-fat diet, avoid fried things), I have been lucky that I have been ABLE to eat. I eat regular meals, I obviously enjoy food a great deal (there's those hips again), and I haven't, knock-on-wood, had a serious flare-up since my initial diagnosis. I have had bouts of uncomfortableness, but nothing that rendered me mute from pain, crouching on the floor of my dorm room, as I did night after night in 1998.
In November 2005, at the advice of my most favorite GI doctor, I went off all of my meds. This was a huge triumph for me, a total coup, as one of the most debilitating and annoying things about my diagnosis was the Pentasa -- a drug that helps control the inflammation, but requires an irritating 16 pills a day. The second most debilitating thing about my Crohn's diagnosis is that I still don't know how it will affect me when I try to get pregnant, a fact I think about too often. The research isn't good (surprise, surprise), in that there hasn't been a whole lot of research. Most of the information I've learned about it, both from my own physicians and the terrifying amount of information available online, gives the 30-30-30 rule for Crohn's patients who are also trying to conceive: 30% of patients will get better, 30% of patients will get worse, and 30% of patients will stay the same. Getting worse, obviously, is to be avoided, as Crohn's patients who are flaring during their pregnancy suffer an increased risk of miscarriage. Andy assures me that the 30-30-30 statistic is a doctor's way of telling me "we have no clue what will happen to you, so here's some information that's not really meant to be reassuring, but is simply meant to be information." Ah. It's so clear now. Riiight.
So I went off my meds in November 2005 because, as my doctor and I thoughtfully concluded, I was not pregnant, nor was I intending to become pregnant any time soon. We agreed that going off the meds would be a good experiment, since, if I could tolerate it, it would be nice to be off the meds when I was actually attempting to become pregnant.
For the first several months, I felt great. I wasn't taking any medications for Crohn's at all, and I was eating basically what I wanted to eat, still avoiding the high-fat foods and the ever-evil spinach. But a few months after we moved to Pittsburgh, I started to experience some symptoms. They were typical symptoms, nothing too awful, but they scared me enough to tell Matt. And Matt was scared enough to encourage me to find a GI in Pittsburgh. My GI (the first female GI I'd had!) wanted to put me on meds right away, but I told her that I'd rather know for sure that I was flaring before I took meds, and even though this meant yet another colonoscopy, I really wanted to know for sure before I went back on meds. (As an aside, I've had four colonoscopies in my short life! So if you're over 50 and you haven't yet been checked for polyps in your colon, you will get no sympathy from me. Go get yourself a goddamn colonoscopy and get checked for polyps, since colon cancer can be detected early!) I was also confident that the colonoscopy would show that I was simply overreacting, that my so-called symptoms were a manifestation of how much I hated Pittsburgh, and not a manifestation of how much my intestines hate me.
Of course, if you know me at all, or you know even a little bit about Crohn's disease, or even a little bit about mental health, then you know that sometimes, when you hate something in your life, your body decides it's not too thrilled with you either. In short, the colonoscopy showed angry and ferocious ulcerations in my terminal ileum. So the pain in my belly wasn't just caused by the pain in my psyche, but it did mean I'd have to go back on meds.
I was understandably sad. And also a lot more vocal about my discomfort. The final admission of the fact that I do, actually, suffer from Crohn's disease, always occurs when I tell my dad how I'm feeling. The mixture of sadness and concern in his voice is something I'd always like to avoid, so I put off telling him until I feel that I absolutely have to. I use my telling him as a measure of how strong I think I am. If I can tell my dad that I'm sick, then I can deal with the fact that I'm sick. So I started back on my meds (Pentasa now comes in a form where you only have to take 8 pills a day) and braced myself for that phone call. My dad, obviously concerned, said, "oh honey, I'm sorry." And then, almost without missing a beat, "what about your trip?"
It hadn't occurred to me that my Crohn's would affect our trip. That was probably partly because I didn't even want to stop to think about whether it would affect our trip, but mainly because I generally labor under the misbelief that my Crohn's will miraculously disappear just as quickly as the flare presented itself. Of course, this is never the case when you have a chronic illness. Otherwise they wouldn't call it an illness, or even better, chronic.
I talked it over with Matt. I didn't want the Crohn's to affect our trip.
"We're still GOING on this TRIP," I informed him, sounding like that 4-year-old brat he DIDN'T fall in love with.
"Yes, of course we're still going on this trip," he said. "We just need YOU to talk to your doctor about the fact that we're going on this trip. She can probably help us."
Duh.
In between that conversation and talking to my doctor, I talked to everyone else. Julie was worried I'd get really sick, and confided that Cris was really worried too. Andy echoed Matt's advice about talking to my doctor, and other Crohnies (friends with Crohn's) expressed concern. The Internet told me that I could definitely travel with Crohn's. To France. My dad was convinced I'd probably literally crap my brains out, a concern I expressed to my physician when we met.
"You're not going to die," she told me. "But don't be an idiot."
Did I mention that I like this new doctor? She's matter-of-fact and interesting. She also likes to tell me all about the science behind Crohn's Disease and Crohn's treatment. It makes me feel like she thinks I understand what she's talking about. I appreciate this.
Don't be an idiot. This is good advice. Generally, but specifically here, where the food is different and the water is not potable. So what did I do to prepare for going on this trip? Well for starters, I got all the vaccines I'd need. I didn't get any live vaccines, since Crohn's can leave you somewhat immunosuppressed, and it seemed unwise to inject myself with something that was alive and crawling. I filled my Pentasa prescription so that I'll have enough Pentasa to last me for the entire time we're gone, with a little extra for good measure. I had a doctor I know write me prescriptions for things that could go wrong with my intestines, and I double-checked those prescriptions with my GI doctor. I had a long conversation with my GI doctor about the trip, and she reminded me that as a Crohn's patient, I will most likely be quick to assume that anything that goes wrong or hurts is related to my Crohn's. She reminded me that everyone who travels in a country where the water isn't potable has a belly ache from time to time. She reminded me not to be an idiot. She elaborated on this to mean that I shouldn't under any circumstances, drink the water. I can eat street food, but only if it's piping hot. In India, I can eat vegetarian street food but not meat, and in the rest of Southeast Asia, I can probably eat whatever. I should stay away from vegetables that would ordinarily look hard to digest, so basically, things that look like spinach. And I should try new foods, take my meds religiously, and be honest with myself about my body.
So far, so good. I have had a belly ache from time to time this week, but it hasn't been anything that's kept me in the bathroom for longer than usual. I've obviously been trying all kinds of new foods, but I'm staying away from things that look like they'll hurt me. I have only had bottled water to drink. Well, bottled water and beer, but whatever.
In the months to come, I hope to keep you guys updated on the progress of my tummy. Not because I think you're curious, but because I want other Crohnies out there to know that it IS possible to travel to Asia with Crohn's disease. It's possible to spend 31 hours on a plane with Crohn's disease. It's possible to carry around a heavy-ass backpack with Crohn's disease. It's possible to eat new and interesting food with Crohn's disease. And so far, it's possible to be diligent about taking your meds, and possible to find a bathroom when I need it, even when though I don't speak the language and no one in my host country has even heard of Crohn's disease. I don't expect my Crohn's not to be present here; it is, after all, a part of who I am, a chronic part. But I expect it to be as present as it usually is, which is to say that I live with it, and I respect it, but I respect the rest of myself just as much if not more, and I will do my best not to limit my experiences here because of my disease.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
This Won't Hurt A Bit
Except that getting six vaccines DOES hurt. Quite a bit, in fact. Let me re-phrase: it hurt me and not Matt, a fact of which I think he'll keep making me aware for the next 6 or 7 months. (Let's be honest, though. Of COURSE it hurt him, too. He just doesn't want to admit it because he wants to be able to make fun of me.)
Doctors, friends of doctors, and general worriers, Matt and I are now inoculated against the following illnesses: Hepatitis A; Hepatitis B; Typhoid; Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis; Polio; and the Flu. We might add Meningitis to the list, and if I need to, I'll be getting a Yellow Fever vaccine. The kind people at the Allegheny County Health Department shot us both for a mere $400! When you think about it, this is a lot less expensive than say, treating Typhoid. But it still seems like a lot of money for some needles full of dead virus.
And of course, this is not the end of our trip-med stuff. Oh no! We've got a list about a mile long of prescriptions (to ward off Malaria, among other unwanted illnesses), over-the-counter meds,
topical creams, and general first-aid gear to take with us. We intend to stay as healthy as we possibly can, even if it means stopping just short of licking a stranger's hands. I mean, sigh, we were really hoping to do that while we were traveling, but at the advice of our physicians, we'll refrain.
The one upside to getting the vaccines today is that I felt that it entitled us both to a treat. Which turned out to be a banana fruit freeze for me, and a coconut fruit freeze for Matt. Mmm...frozen fruit with tapioca pearls. Maybe my arms will hurt enough that I'll need another one tomorrow!
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