The Adventure Begins.... part 1.

I have arrived in antigua, but i have back log of stories. I plan to bring this blog up to date over the next few days...

As many other things in life, well…my life anyways… many things get pushed to the last minute. So this adventure, like many others, started with some minor misadventures. It all started around four days before my departure. I decided to pick up all my meds. Ends up, I didn’t have a malarone prescription. Now… although Antigua is at altitude, and is not itself a malarial area, almost everywhere else in Central America is. Talking to some friends who had been to Africa, they offered their extra doses, as the barely took any themselves. Or at least this was the plan when I went to the travel clinic a few months earlier. Long story short…I was making plans on a foundation that didn’t exist, and I found myself in need of a prescription for 40 doses of malarone on short notice. This became a bit tougher when many places are closed for the holidays.

On the evening of the 28th after a day spent celebrating Ally’s birthday, we stopped over in Lindsay to make a quick stop at the afterhours clinic. The hope was that I could make it a quick in and out. But, reality strikes. The waiting list was packed, they were turning people away as soon as the clinic opened. I was lucky to get in, and I feel bad, as it was not just I that waited in line, but my Eric, Carol and Ally. So at the end of a wonderful day, we all spent over an hour of waiting, for an exchange with the doctor that lasted less than five minutes. But…in the end, I got the prescription that I needed.

Two days before my departure, I found myself ripping around southern Ontario, trying to fill my small prescription of malarone. Although it a relatively common malarial medication, ends up Lindsay only had about 17 doses. I was leaving town the next day, and new years was fast approaching. I had to split the prescription with another pharmacy in Markham. When I went to pick it up, they didn’t have me on record. After a brief investigation, we found that Google had mismatched the address with the phone number, resulting in me going to the wrong pharmacy. The day before I left, I had finally got my prescription filled. More excitement about the flight to follow…

Check out the updated picasa page later today.