30 June 2008

I Need the Dope

I was also thinking of calling this post, "I Haven't Got Time for the Pain." I have one of the rarer, but still considered mild, side effects of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. The right side of my face, from mid-cheek to mid-throat, is swollen and achy. Today it's actually not as bad as yesterday but I plan on calling the clinic when it opens just in case.

At first I thought the pain was tooth related, due to all the poking and prodding in there plus the extra brushing and flossing last week. It's not crazy to think that something could be irritated in there. But then I perused the tome of vaccine-related FAQ sheets I was given at the immunization clinic and noticed the note about that rare, yet considered mild, side effect.

(What's funny is that it's only on my right side, the side I had the shot in. My measles rash was on my right arm, too. My left arm has yellow fever, though. There's a tell-tale red splotch at the injection site.)

I'm not a huge fan of taking drugs unless I have to. Yesterday morning proved to be my "have to" point. I had something of a drinking problem with my coffee, dribbling it down my chin because half my mouth just wasn't working properly. Attractive, eh? It was time to break out the ibuprofen. We had lunch plans with some friends yesterday and I was not going to be dribbling in front of others.

I am currently a fan of this ibuprofen. I've been taking it about an hour before a meal so I have swallowing abilities by the time I eat. I'm going to call the clinic today to validate this "mild" claim and they'll probably tell me to continue with the ibuprofen. The side effects could last for up to two weeks after the injection. Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment so in the off chance that it is dental related, she'll be able to confirm it. (And probably tell me to continue with the ibuprofen.)

Tired of my medical talk? Stay tuned! I'm considering my first NaBloPoMo in July. The theme is food, and I love food.

27 June 2008

I Have the Fever

Not dance fever or Saturday Night Fever. Yellow fever. Yesterday I got my vaccinations for yellow fever and measles, mumps, and rubella. Within an hour, a measley-looking rash appeared on my arm. That's a common side effect. It's not itchy and it doesn't appear to have spread overnight so I'm not worried, just afraid to show my arm in public.

What did happen overnight? I felt fine when I went to bed. But when the alarm went off at 5:30 to wake me up for a run I ignored it. I told Mike, "I feel hot and achy." We don't have a thermometer, but I suspect the hotness is due to the warmth and humidity outside while the air conditioner isn't turned up enough inside, not an actual fever. The aching is nothing like the arm-impeding aches from the last round of shots, thank goodness. This is more a general flu-like crappiness. These are all regular effects from the vaccination. I'm going to be like this for a couple days, but that's better than turning yellow and dying if I get bit by the wrong mosquito.

So far I've experienced the more mild side effects of all my shots, which I suppose is a good thing, compared to having the moderate or severe side effect. Although, I'm jealous of anyone who doesn't get any side effects at all. It makes me wonder what I should look forward to as the mild side effects of my malaria pills.

25 June 2008

Dental Adventure Two

I was so obsessed with the cavities in my last post that I neglected to mention that the dentist referred me to an oral surgeon for an impacted wisdom tooth. I got my consultation this morning and the little sucker has to come out.

In some ways I've been lucky with my dental history. I simply don't have a full set of adult teeth and that's a good thing because my mouth is so small. It's not like they rotted and fell out. When my baby teeth came out, adult teeth never grew in to replace them. I have a small gap on one side but otherwise the missing teeth are unnoticeable.

Three of the missing teeth are wisdom teeth. That was always a good thing because if the teeth aren't there to begin with then they don't have to be surgically extracted. The fourth was actually embedded deep down and sideways, with the chewing surface facing the inside of my mouth. Dentists always told me not to worry about it unless it started to move toward the molar next to it.

Well, it's apparently been doing summersaults. Not only is it nudged up against the molar, the chewing surface now faces the molar. How could that have happened without my noticing? You'd think that so much movement would have been felt. It just seems impossible. I never had any irritation from that corner of my mouth. Whatever. Happen it did.

Since the wisdom tooth is starting to touch the molar it has to come out sooner rather than later. Normally one would have a few months to think about the pain and costs of this surgery. But we're moving to Burundi of course, so less than a week after my last filling is filled I'll be back in the chair getting this tooth out.

23 June 2008

Wonderful Advances in Dental Technology

This morning I went to the dentist for the first time in, ahem, approximately 10 years. I really have no excuse other than the usual laziness and fear and procrastination. But I finally realized that I'm probably pushing my dental health luck and I've been afraid that my teeth are all going to fall out the moment I arrive in Burundi, where they don't have wonderful advances in dental technology.

The good news is that the dentist said the damage isn't as bad as it could be after 10 years. I brush every day and floss once or twice a week. Not perfect, but not the worst record. I don't drink soda or fruit juices and I'm getting enough calcium. My major tooth enemy is chocolate.

I have cavities. A good portion of them are from the 20-year-old silver fillings in my teeth that have deteriorated and allowed new cavities to move in. (Note to anyone in their 30s who had silver fillings as a youngster: Get those checked out. Apparently they have a "shelf life" of 10 to 15 years and the dentist was amazed my old ones hadn't completely broken apart.)

I was imagining root canals and giant pliers but all my cavities can be fixed with new and improved resin fillings. The dentist also told me that novocain comes in much smaller, less painful needles than it did 10 years ago and they apply a topical numbing gel before the needle goes in. We'll see how excited I am about novocain's breakthroughs after five appointments within the first two weeks of July. Oh, yeah, I said five within two weeks.

Guess how much our insurance covers? None of it! I actually had to set up a finance plan to pay for all my fillings. So you'd better believe I'm going to keep this investment shiny and new looking. On the way home I stopped off at CVS for an alcohol-free mouthwash and those little flossing sticks that make it easier. The dentist said that after I eat chocolate I should at the very least rinse my mouth if not brush. Chocolate sits on your teeth, not only staining them but also allowing the bad bacteria to gobble up all the sugar.

So a lesson to the kids out there. Go to the dentist. It sucks. But it might not be as bad as you fear.

16 June 2008

We Attempt Camping

New Tent
The 2-person tent we bought for Kilimanjaro.

On Friday afternoon we packed up and met some friends at the Big Meadows campground in Shenandoah National Park. It was hot and muggy in D.C., but cooler and crisp in the mountains. The weekend started off great with relatively no traffic and easy tent set-up. We got the fire started and ate lots of yummy camping food. We drank and chatted around the fire. It was not raining and not freezing, so sleeping in a tent was much more enjoyable than the last time I camped.

Saturday dawned warm and sunny. Mike and I were up first and went for a short walk. The deer have lost most of their fear of humans in the campground and they wander through at all times of day. The ones with fawns are a little more cautious though, and about a mile from the campground I saw a doe and the littlest fawn I've ever seen. It looked small enough to scoop up in my arms. When we got back from our walk everyone else was up and we fired up the grill again to cook breakfast. More unhealthy, but totally delicious, camping food.


Hatchet Spatula
No spatula? Try a hatchet.

Our mission for the day was to hike to a waterfall and then splash around and swim in the water. We hiked and hiked and it was getting warmer. We got to the falls... and you couldn't go in. First, there was no access to the water. You watched the falls from an observation platform. Second, there were signs up all along the trail that the water is contaminated so don't go in it.

The hike back to camp was uphill and the weather seemed even hotter and more humid than the walk down. We could hear thunder rumbling in the distance and tried to remain optimistic that storms would go around us. Tensions were starting to rise between the six of us. I was trying to power through the negatives (heat, no waterfall swimming, bugs) because I'm keeping my Kilimanjaro objective in mind and was trying to stay in the spirit of "Well, that's camping".

After a lunch of sandwiches we decided to check out the visitors' center. We had nothing else to do for the afternoon and it looked like a shower was headed our way, so some time indoors wouldn't be the end of the world. We bought a couple bottles of wine there and popped into the restaurant for a snack while a wicked thunderstorm raged outside. But the storm passed and the sun came out and we began to think that maybe the worst was behind us and the evening wouldn't be a rainout.

Nope. Another storm came through once we were back at the campsite and the area totally flooded. A thick fog rolled in and we could barely see each others' tents. The wind blew the rain sideways into the shade screen we'd set up over the table. The three wives retreated to cars for the worst of the rain. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed all around us. It just wasn't pleasant any more and the tension between some of the husbands and wives was getting thicker.

But just as quickly as it came, that storm blew out too and the sun came back. Someone in our group walked up to the ranger station for the evening weather report. Four or five more hours of the same kind of passing storms. That's it. Time to pack up. It was about 5:30 Saturday afternoon. It looked like we'd be spending the night in our individual tents or cars rather than sitting around the fire chatting and drinking, so it seemed pointless to stay just for the sake of it. We packed up during the brief dry spell and left just as the next storm started spitting rain on us again.

For the record, I told Mike that I would have toughed it out through the rain if that's what the group consensus had been. But I was also happy to be clean, warm, and dry and in my own bed by 10:00 that night.

IMG_1109.JPG
Just before the downpour started.

More photos on flickr.

11 June 2008

Hotter Than Africa Hot

As I noted before, we spent the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, for Mike's ten-year college reunion. It was all sorts of reuniony. The first person he saw was his first-year roommate and we mostly hung out with those dorm buddies for the weekend.

It was so hot. It was 100 degrees and high humidity. It was a good opportunity to try out some of the light, loose clothing we've been buying for Africa. But the high in Burundi is generally in the 80s or low 90s. It was hotter in Charlottesville and Washington, D.C., than it usually is in Bujumbura. (Check out my new weather stamp to the right. It shows the pleasant Bujumbura temperatures.)

It was too hot to drink alcohol or eat anything. On Friday night after two glasses of wine and not enough to eat I was sick to my stomach. It was all water and fruit salad for the rest of the weekend. We walked as much as we could but spent a lot of time Saturday afternoon in the air-conditioned buildings looking at exhibits. This weekend I'm sure the old maps collection had more visitors than all other weekends combined since the school opened.

And speaking of the school, what was Thomas Jefferson and his crew thinking? Let's relocate to the hottest, most humid swampy area we can find, and continue wearing our fashionable wigs and wool clothing. The founding fathers were insane.

Mike's a smarty pants and all his college pals are too. It was refreshing to say, "We're moving to Burundi in August," and not be met with the blank "What the hell is Burundi?" look. People actually had heard of it and knew where it was! People had visited neighboring countries and could tell us all about the region. It was amazing. We could converse without our prepared "Burundi intro" speeches.

By 10 pm Saturday we were done. We'd caught up with everyone Mike wanted to catch up with. We weren't interested in an all-night drinak-a-thon. The band kind of sucked. We decided to leave the festivities and get some ice cream in town, then turn in early so we could actually have a relaxing drive home on Sunday. (We are so old!) As we walked across the grounds, the band started playing "Don't You (Forget About Me)," the Simple Minds' song from the end of The Breakfast Club, and we wished there was a goal post to walk past, but there wasn't and we just did John Bender fist pumps into the air. It was a pretty awesome way to end the evening.

And it may be hot, but at least there are no lions in the metro area.


(Picture from Snopes.com)

10 June 2008

Vaccination Vacation

I have much to say about our weekend trip to Charlottesville for Mike's reunion. Unfortunately I can't use my arms very successfully right now. I got my first round of vaccinations yesterday!

My doctor's letter arrived in the mail over the weekend and I called the clinic as soon as they opened yesterday morning. They said I could come at 3:00 and I could not be late. I arrived nice and early at 2:45 and sat in the waiting room until 3:45. Usual doctor's office stuff, and I was replaying the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in my head where Larry is racing a girl down the hall to the dentist's office because it doesn't matter if you have an appointment, what matters is who signs in first.

Finally the same nurse I saw last time called me in. She glanced at my letter for a second, made a little mark on her chart, and put it aside. That's it. No discussion about it, nothing. I'm not sure she even read it, she looked at it for such a short amount of time. Argh. Then she starts going over the list of shots I need. She doesn't like to do more than four or five in one visit and I need at least 8. Some of them are done in three stages. And yellow fever is only given once a week at a specific day and time (and not the day and time I was there). So it was like doing a puzzle, trying to figure out my shot schedule for the next month. Yesterday I got tetanus, typhoid, and the first doses of hep A and hep B -- two shots in each arm. In two weeks I get yellow fever and I think polio. Two weeks after that I go back for second doses of the heps and I pick up my malaria pills. And then, get this, the rest of my shots I get in Burundi! Assuming they are available there!

My arms are aching. Using them a "normal amount" is supposed to relieve the pain, but I feel like I can barely move them. Now that I'm awake I'm trying to lift them over my head every few minutes. (Obviously I couldn't move them in my sleep; in fact, I slept on my sides, probably making them even more achy.) It feels like I did 100 pushups last night.

05 June 2008

My Own Puffy Sleeves

They may not be the Princess Puffysleeviest, but they're there and they're all mine.

I've been working on a suit and I'm almost finished with the jacket. I put the sleeves in this morning and I am in love with them. I just had to take a few moments to share. Yesterday I assembled the sleeves and Mike can tell you, I was tickled by them. Perhaps more tickled than someone should be over sleeves. Now that they're successfully in the jacket I'm totally over the moon.

The suit is a navy blue tropical wool, a first-time jacket pattern (I made a muslin several months ago) and a tried-and-true skirt pattern. I'll post more details once it's complete. I am in a sewing frenzy, trying to get quite a few projects done before we leave in two months. I plan on a second suit with the same jacket and skirt in a light gray tropical wool, but I think I'll wait and make that once I'm in Africa. I want to concentrate on blouses and other skirts to go with the jacket and some casual clothes. More time sewing, less time snapping pics and blogging about it.

Speaking of Africa and clothes, Victoria's Secret is having a sale and I went a little click-happy at their website this morning. I'm satisfied that I now have at least two years' worth of underwear. Most of it is in flamingo pink, since that was a big clearance color. It will be cheery.

04 June 2008

Zoom Zoom

We bought an espresso machine over the weekend. Burundi produces some of the best coffee in the world and we want to take full advantage of it. We've been practicing every afternoon when Mike gets home from French class. Today I made it for the first time and mine was tastier than Mike's, so he has dubbed me the house barista. I'm slow though, because the machine is so complicated and I don't want to break anything. (It will suck if it breaks in Burundi so we are proceeding with caution as we figure out this thing.) Yesterday Mike made mocha. I think I'd like to try espresso over ice cream. Yum.

An espresso machine is one of those things I always figured I could easily live without -- until I actually got one and realized how superfantastic it is.

Espresso Experiments = Sleepless Nights = More Espresso

02 June 2008

We Have Reservations

Mike confirmed our flight reservations today. We really are leaving for Burundi soon! The only kind of reservations we have are for the flight though; we're thrilled to be on our way.

This weekend we took the car to New Jersey to get it registered there in Mike's dad's name. He's keeping the car for us while we're in Burundi. We love it too much to sell and storing it would be expensive. Our little car looks so sad with New Jersey plates instead of California plates.

I'm anxiously awaiting the letter from my doctor in San Francisco allowing me to get my vaccinations. She faxed it to me before mailing the original but she sent it through the fax machine upside-down, so I received a blank page. By the time I could call her to ask her about it, she had already mailed it. Not a huge deal, since I wouldn't have been able to get my vaccinations over the weekend anyway, but it would have been nice to preview the letter to make sure it's absolutely correct before she mailed it.

It feels like we're on a farewell tour. I spent that week in Rhode Island with family and hope to get back for a few days; we spent last weekend with Mike's dad and will be going back once more. The next two weekends we're spending with friends. We have a lot of good-byes to say over the next few weeks.