Thursday 16 September 2004

Egypt Vaccinations

My left arm still hurts a bit after Jenny and I got our combined Hepatitis-A and Typhoid vaccination this morning. If you want to travel, you need to consider the health risks so in preparing for our holiday to Egypt next month, I spent some time reading the WHO's International Travel and Health website. Quite interesting - especially the world disease maps.

Egypt doesn't require any vaccinations but we decided the prudent ones to have covered in our family are Polio, Tetanus/Diptheria and Hepatitis A. Luckily malaria is almost non-existent in Egypt. It's the disease responsible for the highest death rate among travellers. Meanwhile, Hepatitis A is the most common disease travellers catch.

I hate injections. Even though I know they don't hurt much, I can't help getting queasy, light-headed and can even breakout into a cold sweat. Silly, I know, but it's like a real phobia. In a couple of weeks, I'll take the children for their injections and somehow I have to pretend I don't mind getting a Tetanus shot. I can just imagine hearing, "Dad, why are you lying on the floor?"

3 comments:

  1. So last Friday, I took the kids down for their shots and mine.


    I wasn't allowed to be first since the nurse didn't want me getting whoozy and scaring the kids. So R* went first and had two in quick succession. The nurse was fast but R* got pretty upset. I thought the kids were having one combined Hep A/Typhoid shot rather than two so that surprised us both.


    The nurse then snuck up on me and gave me my tetanus shot before sending R* and me outside. Can't say I was happy but I was much better this time round - no giddiness.


    I heard later that K* wasn't bothered much getting his shots and quickly forgot about the whole thing. He's a trooper.

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  2. Any fun side effects from those injections?

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  3. Nope, just a little soreness but it soon went away.

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