More Medical, More Paperwork

I’m just back from a week and a half in Chicago, where I attended a class and went through my storage space. It was a long time to be away and I feel I have a lot to do now. For example, I still have a paper to write for that class, plus my independent study – and I have Reunions at Princeton this weekend. So now I am grateful for that extra week!

I had already had a doctor appointment scheduled, so it was easy to get the form saying that I was physically fit signed, and my doctor also filled out the optional form saying that the minor things I noted when I left Morocco (just in case they became major things, I wanted them documented) weren’t problems (I didn’t even remember what I had said until the Peace Corps screening nurse reminded me!). I also needed the doctor’s appointment in order to get a prescription for the shots I needed; I’d made an appointment at Northwestern’s travel clinic for the same day. I also got new tests – EKG and occult blood for reaching the Peace Corps “magic age,” and G6PD, testing whether I can tolerate antimalarial drugs.

Northwestern’s travel clinic is great – if you’re in Chicago and doing any travel for which shots may be required, I recommend it. I needed typhoid (had the shot in Morocco but it expired), rabies (ditto – apparently there are a lot of monkey bites in the Philippines) and Japanese encephalitis (new; in Southeast Asia but not in Morocco). The last two are series – so I went back the next week for two more shots, and I need one more shot each in June (from a travel clinic in New York). I’ll be reimbursed, which is good – the five shots I’ve had so far cost $896! The nurse there had printed out a bunch of travel updates on not only the Philippines but also many nearby countries just in case (though she missed Laos, to which I’d like to return, and included Iraq, which is not in the area – well, they both have four letters). These were from travax.com, a great web site (but it doesn’t seem open to the public). It talks about not only disease but crime and other risks – and might just be enough to scare away the faint of heart! You can find the disease info on cdc.gov, but travax seems nicely organized.

Towards the end of my time in Chicago the Peace Corps nurse called me and said the new dental assistant there insisted I needed bitewings – not customary for Peace Corps Response, with its streamlined medical screening, but nothing she could do about it. I had already seen the dentist (on my own; they’d told me no new dental was required) but was able to get an additional appointment to get the X-rays. I guess all of my dental records are also in the mail on the way to me; when I get them I think all I have to do is return them to Peace Corps.

And when I got back to Southampton, there was a visa application for the Philippines to be filled out in duplicate, notarized, and FedExed back. I’m about to go into town to take care of that now (despite the rain). And I got a shipping notice from amazon.com – Lonely Planet Philippines, ordered on April 27, is about to ship!