So we had an interesting moment the other morning when our geriatric lab ate the fourth (out of four) Typhoid pill that our daughter dropped onto the floor in the kitchen during breakfast. As soon as it hit the floor so many new problems and stressors flashed through my mind - I was pissed! What were these new problems and stressors? Well for one, that medication is not covered by insurance, so those four pills were about $80; therefore, the pill she dropped on the ground cost about $20. Additionally, they only sell them in packs of...FOUR! So we had to call the doctor, explain what happened, ask them to call in the Rx again, wait for the pharmacy to order it in, then go back and spend another $80. yay... What else, hmmm? Well we had almost gotten the Malarone (in pediatric dosage) taken care of, only to find out that CVS has run out and can't get any more! So they filled 2/3 of what we needed - and then wiped their hands of it. So we've had to call around to the other pharmacies in town and see who has any. Luckily the Target pharmacy has enough to fill the remainder of the Rx, but we had to call them and ask them to call CVS; then, CVS has to do their part and get Target all the needed info to fill the Rx. This took two phone calls. We should be gold now though. Molly is supposed to pick it up tomorrow. That will be all the meds taken care of, but seriously, the medication issue alone has done my head in.
We are bringing a bunch of vitamins with us too. I know this sounds weird to people, but we're concerned that we won't be getting the same nourishing food we get here at home, and we have decided the best way to supplement this is to keep up our vitamins while we're on our trip.
So about the freak out. It wasn't like some panicked melt down. I just ended up spending most of the afternoon yesterday digging through all kinds of stuff that ranged from totally relevant camping gear to totally irrelevant things like old papers, books, clothes, drawers of random things, etc. I set up our tent in the garage and sprayed it with the permethrin stuff that will keep the mozzies at bay, hopefully. I went through all of our stuff and located all our little stuff sacks and pouches that we will need for organizing toiletries, cords, adapters, and whatever else we think we'll need for two months in Africa. Undoubtedly we'll be overpacked or wrongly packed but at this point screw it. There is a whole pile of tubes, containers, pouches, stuff sacks, half-used sun screens, and other bits on Molly's dressing vanity. This was all stuff that I had gathered up while digging through various parts of the house.
We have not yet decided whether to take our Nikon DSLR camera or to eschew it for something smaller and lighter; the trade-off being lower quality pictures. I don't generally worry about these sorts of things, but the camera is heavy which seems like a good reason to leave it behind. However, we may want to capture these moments that are once in a lifetime with something slightly better than our iPhones. The jury is still out. This item, along with the stove and cookset, won't get packed until all the absolute essentials (whatever that means) are in our packs. We also bought the closed cell foam sleeping pads for the kids as an alternative to their inflatables. The problem is the way they attach to their packs is sideways across the bottom of their packs. I'm genuinely concerned that their lack of spacial awareness is going to result in them bumping into everyone and everything during our entire trip. So those will probably stay home too, but we'll use them later this summer while backpacking in the mountains.
Lastly, I just emailed another WWOOF a couple hours ago. This one is in Kenya. If we're lucky they'll respond and agree to let the four of us come volunteer for a week or so. If anyone wants to check it out, the website is below. Peace.
http://happyhomeorg.weebly.com
