Immunizations for patrol — Measles, Mumps and Bears, OH My!

*** Let me start this off with a disclaimer as although I’ve now received a fair amount of medical training (ha), there is still no substitute for talking this over with your doctor.***

Having said that, when I joined up I didn’t really think through the part about having to deal with other people’s blood. During class you will “talk” about it a lot but in the real world we will probably see a bunch of the real stuff and if you are coming into contact with bodily fluids of random people, you are going to want to make sure you are fully protected. First off that starts with always wearing gloves. My whole class was infatuated with the rumor that some patrollers wear their nitrile gloves UNDER their ski gloves, YUCK! I’m sure its a good idea but i’ll take an extra few seconds to put them on thank you.

The other thing you can do is get immunized. For my class, we were recommended to get Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, DTAP, Flu Vaccine and MMR. DTAP and MMR are easy, one shot and you are done and many have probably already had these when you were a kid but its a good idea to top it up. Hepatitis A is two shots over six months. One now, one 6 months later. Hepatitis B is three shots. One now, one in a month and one in 6 months. Given that the Hepatitis ones take so long, its probably a good idea to start these earlier than later to insure full protection so don’t put this off. Need some motivation, just read on the web what Hepatitis will do to you and you will do like I did and call you doctor and let them give you a couple of shots to be safe.

Just hope you don’t get the nurse in the photo above. If she shows up, all bets are off!!!