So, I know everyone is waiting with the proverbial baited breath for a gush of a posting about how gorgeous our vacation was. Um. Sorry. While on the nightflight home, sitting in the middle of a 3 seat row with a child slumped on either side of me and my tray table almost touching their heads as I scribbled, what I was thinking about was what I *always* think about. The logistics of being a happy parent. Groan if you must. I'd been up to my eyeballs in this project for 2 weeks. The beauties of Guatemala will come in due time. Herewith: Taking the kids bush and doing it happily. Lesson 1: Your MedKit Shots and Hygiene are Not to be Shirked
You've decided to take your kid someplace your neighbors arch your eyebrows and say "Is that really a good idea?" and "Wasn't there poverty/civil war/famine there recently?" First order of business is to mind your health -- if the CDC suggests shots GET THEM. For Guatemala they recommend Hep A (which every child in the US receives at age 3 anyway) and Typhoid both of which are food and water born illnesses. For the lowlands they recommend malaria medicines if you're going to be there long and a liberal use of 30% DEET bug repelants for kids, 70%+ for adults no matter how long you're there. Permethin is something you can spray on your clothes to kill mosquitos should they land where they can't bite. Whatever your feelings about the evils of DEET for daily use in your home country, suck it up and don't get malaria. Or dengue. It's a couple of weeks. Use the DEET. Carefully. Age appropriately. But use it.
Other medical oddiments you can't live without: Pepto for Kids. Pepto for Adults. Imodium. Emetrol. Powdered gatorade which when diluted to about 1/3 strength is a health practioner recommended electrolyte replacement for illness, Advil for Kids. Advil for adults. Bandaids. Neosporin. A thermometer. Purel. Did I mention the Purel? P-U-R-E-L. You will learn it is your dearest friend. If you use it regularly whenever there's no soap, all of those other things I listed (except perhaps the bandaids and the Tylenol) will be irrelevant.
For the conservative, you might also ask your pediatrician for a prescription for some heavy duty antibiotics and a couple of epipens. We didn't ask for the antibiotics. We figured if we got scared enough to think we needed antibiotics we'd be finding a doctor in-country but the epi pens are something I no longer feel safe traveling without even as an adult. In Thailand 10 years ago, I who have no food allergies, got a case of hives from eating *something* on the night train to Chengmai. If I'd had even a kid-strength pen then I'd have used it on myself. Get an epi pen. And then laugh about how you didn't need it. If you don't use the soap/Purel you won't be laughing.
Purel or soap are only a part of your new religious discipline mostly related to eating and drinking. You never drink anything that wasn't sealed before you opened it. You never eat anything raw unless it had a skin that is no longer present. You only use a straw if you see it wrapped in paper and remove the wrapper yourself. You can break these rules and you might even get away with it as long as you're sensitive to the overall cleanliness of the places you eat. I talked to a guy who had been eating fresh salads in all sorts of restaurants for weeks with no ill effects. And bully for him. But he's not three years old and his dysentery is his problem to deal with in isolation. My dysentery or my kids gets out of hand and 3 other people are getting scared, bored and grossed out by it.
Other than your food observances, there's really only the one great commandment you break at your extreme peril. Wash. Your. Hands -- With. Soap. You do it before you eat. You do it every time you use the bathroom. You do it every time you touch the ground. You do it just because you can't remember when you did it last. I am convinced. If you will just do this, you can avoid almost every ill that comes your way. Our family case study was an interesting one. Betsy still sucks her fingers. Ginger doesn't. We warned Betsy thoroughly and carefully that we didn't want to stop her sucking on her fingers but that if she wasn't careful about washing she could be violently sick. We warned Ginger, too. But she's three. And not interested in hygiene.
What can I say? The results were notable. Ginger was the sickest of us all. While she never threw up, and we never had a day when we were stuck because she had to be near a bathroom every 15 minutes, we fought about handwashing, fed her Pepto like candy and carried diapers at the ready incase a toilet was completely inaccessible (it never came to that). Reed came next. He munched Pepto and cursed a bit. I took no meds but felt a tad ill. Betsy? Betsy was an OCD hand-washing maniac. And she was absolutely untouched.
I'd heard it from my nursing friends. I'd heard it from my teacher friends. I knew my special ed teacher sister in law, swears by it. Wash. Your. Hands. With. Soap.
I'm a convert. I think I'll go wash my hands now.
Posted by karen at September 3, 2008 08:39 AM