One Shot Please

Billy's company needs him to go check on a shop doing some work for his project. It's like 7 hours away in the interior of Brazil. I'm getting to go with, but it turns out if you get away from the coasts you need a Yellow Fever Vaccine. Bummer. So now we have to go get shots this afternoon. I'll update on our adventures when I get back.

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Update

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So here's the details. When you go to Brazil, you don't have to get a shot for Yellow Fever. It's not an issue out here by the coast. But if you travel in the interior (where our destination Ipatinga is located), you really, really should get immunized. From now on, we will definitely get all possible immunizations before we leave the US.

Yesterday afternoon Billy found out about this requirement. He'd only found out about this little side trip the afternoon before, so it's not like we had a lot of time to prepare. He left work early to go to a clinic before 5 PM. After some searching, we eventually found the place, only they stopped doing vaccinations at 3 PM. We returned at 7:30 AM this morning as instructed. By 8 AM, the lady there informed us they did not have any vaccines available, and sent us to the hospital. They claimed at first to have too few to go around (about 10 people were waiting) and after nearly an hour told us to come back at 2 PM. We got there are 12:30 PM, and were told they would start at 1:30 PM. We returned at 1 PM and were instructed they had no vaccines, try another day. Elias went around back to the office, and got info on another clinic after much angry talk from the woman in charge. There does appear to be a shortage. We tried the place she suggested. They had a straight-forward sign on the door saying they were out. Elias spoke to them, and finally was told that each location should have 30 shots available tomorrow. She said we could come back there, or try the first place we'd gone. They're smaller and we have a better chance there. So it's back to clinic # 1 again at 7:30 AM tomorrow. If we have no luck there, we'll give the hospital one more try. 

If we're still out of luck, I will not go on this side trip, but Billy still needs to. Ipatinga is on the very edge of the danger zone, so he probably won't even be exposed. He'll just stay covered up, use a mosquito net, and lots of bug spray. The real bummer is that the guys lost an entire day at work over this wild goose chase. Plus having left early the day before, and going in late tomorrow. So keep your fingers crossed we actually get our shots tomorrow. But we've stocked up on bug spray either way... we're also heading into the fringes of possible malaria territory.