I got 4 shots yesterday, the beginning of a long series of necessary immunizations. My arms hurt.  Since this is a business trip, we went to the medical clinic at Qualcomm in San Diego (Qualcomm is E.’s employer).  It is a great facility.  We met with Laura, a nurse practitioner specialized in travel medicine, who was very thorough in explaining the risks and how to protect ourselves.

In case you’re interested, here is the complete schedule of vaccinations required for an extended stay in India.

Day one (that was Monday):

• Hepatitis A and B together
• Measles, mumps and rubella
• Yellow fever
• Typhoid

Day seven:

• Hepatitis A and B, second dose
• Polio booster
•  Tdap (tetanus with pertussis)

Day 28:

• Hepatitis A and B, third dose
• Japanese encephalitis

In a year:

• the last and second dose against Japanese encephalitis
• And again, Hepatitis A and B

Add to this 3 shots for rabies that we will get over the summer.  This clinic doesn’t have it in stock, nor do they provide it at all so we’ll have to search for one.  I believe SFO does it.

Then we should be covered for our entire stay in India.  For the sake of accuracy, I should mention that yellow fever is not required for India, but since we plan on traveling to other places in Asia that may have the disease, we included it in the package.

This makes it a total of 14 shots, over 7 visits.  I feel like a pincushion.  Since E. already went to Asia in the fall, he had already had a few and only needed 3 yesterday.

“How about the cream?” you may ask.  It works rather well.  But you have to slather on more than I had, and especially in the right place.  I had put it on both my arms but not the back of my arms.  So it hurt.  I said a really bad word to the nurse 😦

For our short trip in a few weeks, we will take daily anti-malaria pills.  Then for the 2 years we’ll be living there, it seems that we just have to be wary of mosquitoes and hope for the best.  I hear malaria is treatable.

Laura also gave us each a cute little “International Traveler’s Kit”.  It’s a combination of First Aid and Comfort kit.

Here is the inventory, and a picture of everything I found in it:

• Large bandage
• Small bandage
• Gauze
• 4 sterile gauze pads
• Gauze tape
• Safety pins
• Scissors
• 1 pair of vinyl gloves
• Assorted bandaids
• 2 forehead thermometers
• Ophthalmic solution
• Nasal decongestant
• Bug spray 30% DEET
• 6 cherry eucalyptus candies
• 1 triangular bandage 40x40x56
• 3 antihistamine pills
• 15 acetaminophen pills of different strengths
• 2 antiseptic prep pads
• 4 ibuprofen pills
• 16 generic pepto pills of different strengths
• 4 antacids
• 2 packs of hydrocortisone cream
• 2 sting relief towelettes
• 3 packs antibiotic ointment
• 6 antiseptic wipes
• 2 mini hand sanitizers

Strangely, it doesn’t have Naproxen.

We also each got a Zpac and a prescription for anti-malaria pills that should be waiting for us at the pharmacy.  And a thermometer since fevers determine which type of disease you may be suffering from.

That’s an awful lot of medicine!