Wish you were here?
So, my summer missions trip is 2 weeks away. Dude, it's 2 weeks away. TWO WEEKS AWAY! I am pumped like Richmond's elaborate underground dam system. Man, just thinking about the sand dunes, camel rides, palm trees, hospitable Arab culture, and getting to share the love of Christ in a nation that hasn't even heard of His name in almost 13 centuries...well, it's enough to make an easily-impressed person like me almost collapse under all the excitement.
Almost makes the endless cycle of vaccinations I've had to endure seem worth it!
In the past few weeks I've had so many vaccinations I feel like there's no bacteria in the world strong enough to take me on. I recently received my inoculations for Hep. A, Typhoid, Polio, influenza...
In the past few weeks I've had so many vaccinations I feel like there's no bacteria in the world strong enough to take me on. I recently received my inoculations for Hep. A, Typhoid, Polio, influenza...
... and "food borne-diseases". The last one was actually an oral vaccination. It was really gross. That's why I've decided that this post is dedicated to Dukoral: the eighth wonder of the modern world!
Now, I've always been mildly anxious about needles (and by "mildly anxious" I mean they have to take me to the special, dimly-lit room and lie me down on the Special Mattress and make me look at calming nature pictures as they're giving me vaccinations so that I don't start shaking and convulsing at the sight of pointy objects penetrating my skin - true story!), so I always thought that oral vaccinations would be a great idea: no needles, no dimly-lit rooms, no seizures, no temperature-of-102's, no lawsuits...no problem, right? WRONG!
I mean, you have to swallow a hundred trillion inactivated bacteria that have been suspended in 5 ounces of supposedly "raspberry" flavoured liquid (personally, I've never tasted salty raspberries; perhaps it's an Ontario thing, I don't know). Maybe it's not so bad if you don't actually know what you're ingesting, but after spending a year in a microbiology lab, the thought that I'm consuming some of those little (big) colonies I was warned by the lab technician NEVER TO INGEST leaves me feeling slightly uneasy. Plus I needed to take 2 doses....and it only lasts for 3 months...and it only has a 60% success rate. I guess that means that when I'm in North Africa, I'll still need to boil my fruit for 10 minutes before it's considered safe for consumption.
As I was sharing this story with a friend of mine, she informed me that she "really liked" the taste of Dukoral...I don't know what's up with that, but I guess it takes all kinds to make a world...well, two kinds of people apparently...those who like the taste of Recombinant cholera toxin B subunit, and those who don't.
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