Apparently, travel medication is not exactly easy to come by these days. First, I had to go to my general practitioner. She recommended Malaria tablets, Hep A, and a tetanus booster. The Malaria was fairly easy to come by, she just called in a prescription for me (pictured above). My insurance even paid for it. What they didn't tell me was that the insurance would only let me fill 30 at a time. So after some confusion, I finally got all I needed. A bit confused how they expect me to keep it at 70 F, as my apt isn't even that cool in the summer. I use the windows until it starts scraping 90 F.
Next up were the shots. After checking the CDC, I also saw that I should probably get a Typhoid shot. I called my local Health dept, but they said I'd better go some place else. Very nice, just not helpful. After calling around, it turned out that the Little Clinic in Kroger was my best choice. So after a couple of mis-tries (lines too long, out of the shot I needed, ect) I finally got my Tetanus, Hep A, and even Whooping cough done (came with one of them, can't remember which). But the Hep A was kind of just an exercise in finger crossing, since it requires two doses, six months apart. As I didn't find out for sure I was going till late Feb, that wasn't really an option. I'll get the second dose when I get back.
With just one medication to go, I thought I was going to have to drive to the Farragut Little Clinic to get the Typhoid. Apparently I misunderstood, they could prescribe the pill form with the live virus for me. Wish I had known this before, I could've got it the first time or even asked my PA to prescribe it. Now, I was faced with finding a pharmacy that would actually fill it within the week. I took it to the Walgreens near me and they looked at me, and looked at their computer screens, and looked anything but hopeful. "Come back tomorrow," they said. I did. "Come back again, tomorrow." I was running out of tomorrows. Finally, the third tomorrow, they had it. I took it home and read the label: "Take every other day for 4 days one hour before eating." I could do that tomorrow. I left it in my 85 F apt over night, and then took it in the morning. But after I opened up the package, took out the bottle, and, confusedly, took a box out of the bottle, I read "keep refrigerated." Really? They couldn't put that on the outer bag??? It also read, "take 1 hr before eating or 2-3 hrs after." Good gravy.
To top it all, I left it at the apt. Guess I'll be going back tomorrow. At least I left it in the fridge.
