Tuesday, June 23, 2009

OUCH! The pain of vaccinations

MMR booster

DPT

Polio

Hepatitis A

Hepatitis B

Rabies

Typhoid

Malaria

Yellow Fever

Taking care of the long list of vaccinations has been a struggle to say the least and a bit painful at times. I started the process on April 28th and am still working on a few of them. I played back and forth with my doctor’s office and a pharmacy multiple times trying to get it worked out but I think I am finally squared away. My doctor put in a request to my insurance to have most of the shots covered as it is for work and it covered two more but it also added a few weeks to the process. I keep telling myself that I have more time then money at this point so I need to be patient.

My doctor told me to go to an urgent care center for polio, yellow fever and my MMR booster. So, having heard great things about the Playa Vista urgent care center from the EMTs at LMU I stopped by. They specialize in travel vaccinations, who knew!? They guy at the desk said that they had just submitted paper work to received the yellow fever vaccine but the guy told me that they expect to have it very soon. Jump to last Saturday when I went to the Playa Vista Farmers Market (its small but nice, check it out all you LMU people) and the urgent care center had a booth so I stopped by to inquire once again about the yellow fever vaccination and it was as if I had told the lady she had won the lottery. First – I would compare her to Kristin Wigg on SNL as the Target Lady. If you don’t know what I am talking about check it out on YouTube. Anyway, her face lit up! “Oh, our FIRST yellow fever patient!” Causing me to look around as if to tell people – I don’t HAVE yellow fever, I need to get the vaccine, thanks a lot lady! “ We just ordered it. Our nurse Karen just stepped away (She was getting some green beans, not that it matters) she’ll know when it should be in. Here she comes” Yelling across the entrance of the farmers market, “KAREN! HE IS ASKING ABOUT YELLOW FEVER!” said the Target-like lady. (I really appreciated her doctor patient confidentiality) Karen approached with her green beans and a smile and told me they submitted the paper work a few weeks ago and it would be in by the middle of this week. I said “Thanks, I’ll stop by next week then, have a great day” and began to walk away when Target-like lady said, “Hey, did you get a first aid kit?” She was very pleased with herself.

So, that is a brief version of the vaccinations. Should anything else fun happen when I actually complete the process at the Playa Vista Urgent Care Center I’ll be sure you know all about it.