The countdown is on.

All those details I need to work out to be gone for 16 days – and I mean gone, gone, totally checked out, across the ocean, no phone service or internet gone – it’s time to get all that business nailed down.

I have my plane tickets and my visa application taken care of. This week I went to the traveler’s clinic at UVA to get my prescription for malaria medicine and Cipro. I didn’t think I needed much in the way of vaccinations as I had all that done last year – yellow fever, typhoid, meningococcal something, flu, Hep A, polio and tetanus boosters, but I did get my flu vaccine and a Hep A booster.

Liberia is coded high risk on CDC world maps for just about every disease – AIDS, malaria, Hepatitis A/B/C, cholera, rabies, TB, worms and assorted other parasites and hemorrhagic viruses. I believe it was about at this point last year I had my first (and really only) bout of fear. Reading the descriptions of all the possible things that could go wrong and the grim assessment of the availability of any kind of health care is sobering. Fortunately, I am not easily freaked out or deterred.

Last year I fared well. I didn’t even get the traveler’s diarrhea that hits almost everyone. I pray that I can be so blessed again. I still have an unopened bottle if Immodium (not expired!) that I will take with me, as well as some Pepto and ipubrofen. I think just carrying it is some kind of insurance. I never used my Cipro last year – the super anti-biotic - so I left it behind. I’m quite sure someone was able to make good use of it.

We took lots of de-wormers, Tylenol, ibuprofen, vitamins and yeast meds everywhere we went. We handed them out as much as we could, and you would have thought we were tossing out gold coins. Such simple remedies can yield such powerful relief – especially to those for whom such things are completely unavailable.

For all the talk about the  state of the American health care system and how broken it is, let us be thankful for the access we have. Did you know there are only 3 surgeons in the whole country of Liberia? Seriously ill and injured wait (if they survive the wait) for mercy ships with doctors to make a stop off the shores of Liberia. Oh lord, have mercy!