Death trip

I got my vaccines for going to Ecuador today! I managed to drive myself to the travel clinic, although my brain was an illness-induced muddled fog. I'm getting better, but it probably wasn't the best idea to present myself in public just yet.

I've never been vaccinated for travel purposes, although I've left the country on several occasions. And Canada doesn't count. When you live in my region, you don't exist if you haven't been to Canada. No, I've been to Puerto Rico and Costa Rica. But for some reason, neither of those trips involved vaccines.

So I spent a long time talking with the doctor at the travel clinic, and the gist of the endless barrage of information she gave me amounted to: DO NOT GO ANYWHERE, EAT ANYTHING, DRINK ANYTHING, BREATHE, OR PERFORM ANY BASIC BODILY FUNCTIONS OR ELSE YOU WILL DIE!

I was looking forward to this trip. Now I'm fairly certain that I'll be transported home in a body bag. People don't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that I have anxiety, I am a paranoid person, and I am internally a small child. You know that scene in Scrubs where Carla's like, "It wasn't until recently that I told Turk that the real reason I don't touch the seat when I pee isn't because of germs but because I'm afraid of toilet snakes," and Eliot is like, "And now so am I..."

That is me, folks. All you have to do is make a reference to a monster/creature/serial killer/scary character in a movie/vaguely creepy anything and I will be scared of it FOREVER. So now, instead of being super excited about my vacation, I'm huddled on my couch, worrying that the tetanus, hepatitis A, typhoid, and yellow fever vaccines won't work; that the malaria pills I've been prescribed won't stop death malaria from killing me; that I'll leave my friend's house and immediately be eaten by killer mosquitos; that I'll die of altitude sickness; that I'll be poisoned by any food or water that enters my system; that I'll forget the portable pharmacy that I'm supposed to take along with me and thus die of anything else I haven't been vaccinated/medicated for; that Ecuadorian Friend and I will get lost in the city and be mugged (there's a vaccine for that, right?! Where can I get one?!); that Ecuadorian Friend and/or I will fall into the nearby volcano and be lavadated to death; that Ecuadorian Friend and I will get lost/stranded in the jungle and be eaten by wild jungle beasts; that I'll be eaten by sharks if/when we go to the beach (is there a vaccine for that one, too?); that I'll be separated from Ecuadorian Friend at some point on the trip and die of not being able to find him again...it goes on and on and on.

This f*cking sucks because if I must die on my vacation to Ecuador, it MUST be due to velociraptors! That is the only acceptable death! Everything else my brain comes up with is lame. I want a death that will make headlines, dammit.