And so, for us, our journey has now really begun.  We have started our vaccinations.  To some, it might seem that we are probaby over-doing things, but for us, although this is an expensive route (and never 100% sure!), our continued health is important and thus worth it.  We'll leave you to decide for yourselves....

Our first vaccination has been Yellow Fever.  We decided to start on this because this vaccination comes with its own certificate in the form of a little yellow booklet.  Along with the certificate are a couple of additional pages for space to record and validate all our other vacinations as well.  Suitable, we hope, for presenting to officials at border crossings etc.

Of all the vaccinations we have decided to have done, there are only 2 that are live.  The rest are passive or genetically engineered.  You can get a little more information from here http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40025106/ or www.netdoctor.co.uk. 

The reason I have mentioned this is that live vaccinations should (1) be done on the same day or not within 3 weeks of another live vaccinations and, (2) you need to be in relatively good health.  Our view of this has been to decide on what vaccinations we need (ie want), plan a regime in terms of their potential effects on each other, how long they need to be done before leaving (when they provide active cover) and how long each course takes.  Simple when we approached it like this but it does taking a bit of planning :-)

I'm really glad we decided to have the Yellow Fever now (4 months before we are due to leave).  Although Trevor had absolutely no reaction, I suffered from quite horrible side effects and, amongst others (these were the worst!), was pretty tired, listless & achey (almost flu-like symptoms) for 4-5 days after it was done.  Once this was over, I bounced back to normal overnight.

Our next course begins next week for Hepatitis B.  We don't have enough time for an extended long course (3 injections at month 0, month 1 and month 6) so we will go on an accelerated course (3 injections at month 0, month 1 and month 2) which will require a booster after 1 year. 

Once we have got a bit more information together we will post the spreadsheet detailing our list of vaccinations, the schedule, what's covered by NHS, what we had to pay for, how long the vaccination last, effects on each other etc.  Of course, we aren't doctors nor in the medical profession so what we post must come with that caveat - we aren't making any recommendations, we've shared the information just so that you can see what we have done.