Vaccinations

I am fairly well travelled. Well, I used to be before I had children as they sometimes cramp your style (and make the carefree life of travel to exotic locations very very very stressful). I've spent Carnival in Bahia, Northern Brazil and the millennium celebrations in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I've been mugged in Seoul, South Korea (3 times) and got lost in Brussels (very very very drunk) with my sister.

OK, that last one didn't require vaccinations but the others did. Alas, it has been 8 years since my last course of vaccinations and some vaccinations I've never had, eg rabies. I needed some boosters.

In preparation for my trip to India I had to journey into the centre of London yesterday afternoon and spend an inordinate amount of time being poked and prodded. My aim was to obtain my Fit to Travel Certificate which would mean that I was covered under the company insurance scheme but I got far more than I bargained for(besides a very sore arm).

I watched as the nurse unloaded a bag full of goodies:

• One Tummy Kit: full of stuff to treat diarrhea and all those symptoms associated with eating dodgy food and unclean water
• One Medicine Kit: full of pills to treat most aches, pains, burns, scraps, cuts, including paracetamol, bacterial cream, hydro cortisone, travel sickness pills, antibiotics and even codeine. Cool!
• One Minor Operation Kit: I'm not kidding! In addition to band aids and gauze and burn covers and bandages and tape there is a pair of scissors, a suture kit, needles (of various sizes, of course) and syringes, a venflo just in case I need to give myself an IV, oh and I mustn't forget the scalpel.

I feel like a mobile Medicins San Frontieres.

Now, could someone please explain to me why I have never had to have any of this before? Even when I travelled for business? OK, so I had a bodyguard in Korea for a while but I certainly never had a scalpel.

There is an upside to this. I also have an International SOS card and a Blood card. The blood card means that if anything happens to me they will fly in blood especially for me all the way from Geneva. I wonder what is wrong with the blood from India. The International SOS card means that if something happens I call the emergency number and they send a helicopter for me. Now I'm thinking this could come in handy if I'm running short of time for shopping. I don't suppose that would classify as an emergency for some but others could give a pretty persuasive argument.