Today we took a little field trip to the Wellnessmart, a doctor’s office for people who aren’t sick. Ironically enough, I am sick. I have been fighting a cold since last Friday and have no voice today, so I felt like I was defiling the Wellnessmart! But we weren’t there for the cold – we went to talk with them about vaccines and medicines and living in Africa.

These guys are great! They run a little store front in Thousand Oaks, and their happy hour special is a flu shot. In addition to that, they do lots of education – from the basics about keeping yourself well, to what to know when you travel to any number of countries, to how to best utilize your health insurance and the services offered in the medical field. It’s the first logical approach to health care that I think I’ve ever seen and, more importantly, understood! If you’re interested, I hyperlinked the picture below so that you can check them out.

The other thing they do – and the reason we went to see them – is vaccinations. There are a few nasty bugs and viruses in Malawi that we aren’t really interested in getting to know or experience, and we were due for a few updates on the basics. All in all, we have a line up of about 4-5 shots waiting for each of us as soon as I can shake this cold. While that won’t protect us from every nasty bug or virus, we feel it’s a good, reasonable step in stewarding our health. Now if I could just find a good, reasonable step to not being afraid of needles…