Ouch!

Yesterday I made a visit to the health department to get the immunizations that are required for the Haiti trip. Three pokes and $170 later I was on my way again. I had to get a typhoid shot, hepatitis A & B, and a Measles, Mumps, Rubella booster. It's so close to my departure date that the hepatitis shots aren't going to be all that effective, but the nurse said that I should get them anyway since Hepatitis is on the rise in the states. One of the last things that she told me is that I will likely feel some flu-like symptoms and nausea in 10-14 days. Lovely. I leave in ten days and I come back in 14 days, so the whole trip could end up being a lot of fun. She also told me that the malaria pills that I am going to have to take could result in hallucinations. A friend told me that I can definitely expect to have some very vivid dreams while I'm taking them. Nice. All I need right now is to have my imagination going a little wild since I'm already struggling to keep my wits about me in the middle of all of this.

Phil is at the doctor this morning getting his malaria prescription along with some anti-anxiety stuff that will hopefully help him get through the plane trip home with Noah without too much stress. He's a little nervous about flying across the country with a two-year old, which is kind of a daunting task under normal circumstances. The fact that they won't know each other at all is going to make it even more interesting. I'm thinking that they will do some serious father/son bonding in a very short time. If they walk off of the plane under their own power at the end of the trip I will consider it a success.

I can't believe that I am going to finally meet Noah, face to face, in less than two weeks. Yikes! I'm imagining a very emotional greeting. I hope that I don't scare the poor kid to death.

On another note, Proxy isn't getting any better. Two nights ago he was stumbling around in the middle of the night and we couldn't get him to get in his bed and relax. Sometime after midnight I took him outside thinking that maybe he needed to go to the bathroom, but he just stood there staring at me so I took him back upstairs. At about 4:00 a.m. he was standing in the corner of our bedroom just whimpering, if that's what you can call it when it's coming from a dog. He was disoriented and we are wondering how well he is seeing things. We often find him walking in circles or just standing in a random spot in kind of a catatonic state. Phil decided to just bring him onto our bed, and we petted him until he settled down and slept the rest of the night. Last night wasn't much better, except he was on our bed much earlier in the night. Phil keeps telling me that we need to really think about how long we are going to make him live like this. I just can't accept that he's not going to get better. For some reason, I'm still hoping that we will figure out a way to help him and that he'll get back to normal. I've never been very good at dealing with hard things.