One Little Wheel

Yesterday I had my first lot of injections. Hep A and B mix (Twinrix) and a tetanus, polio, diphtheria combo. ‘Let your arm flop’, the wry nurse instructed as she flicked out the syringe, ‘let the shoulder drop all the way’, pudgy fingers clamp tight the muscle, ‘you’ll wana master this for the Japanese encephalitis’, jab, ‘It hurts like hell’. Great, something to look forward to then! We have to get rabies as well *sigh*

Liz is much better at these things than me. Where she is stoic, I am a pain announcer. Share it around is my motto, what is the point of bravery and endurance if there is no one to coo about it? As someone in a book once said; ‘pain can never be known it can only be believed’, so believe! small prick my arse.

Anti-malarial’s. We are going away for 9 months, I’m not sure how I feel about putting drugs in my body daily for 9 months. And if I did decide to, which set of chemicals should we take? We are going through so many different regions all of which have variously flavoured mosquitoes with all sorts of different resistances. I think I know that malaria is bad.. but isn’t it curable with the right medicines? And I’m sure I read somewhere that the drugs suppress a fever, so if you did get malaria while taking anti-malarials (which is possible) then you wouldn’t know! It is quite hard to get clear information; the bloggers are opinionated but dubiously informed and the medical centres want to cover their backs and get you to buy their products. I have been to India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Laos before and have never taken anti –malarials. I did take some homeopathic stuff once and some ayurvedic medicine in Nepal. But if I’m honest I’m not sure if I really believe they work. I cover up and go deet mad but I’m sweet blooded and seem to attract any needle-faced sucker within a 100 mile radius. Just the other day I got 4 big red throbbing mosquito bites.. in England! .. in the middle of winter! I suspect this will be a rumbling debate.