Monday Motivation: LaKeisha and Give It 100

I'm probably way out of the loop on this… and this has probably been posted/shared a gazillion times… but I saw this video for the first time today and was SO MOVED.

It's a time-lapse video of a woman named LaKeisha, who committed to going to the gym every day for 100 days. In three minutes she made me cry (0:54), laugh (1:32, when she'd dancing with her bear), and cheer (2:05, day 78, when she steps on the scale and it settles on 299.2 -- "out of the 300 club!").

click the image to watch the video on YouTube...

Then I went to the Give It 100 site and discovered other people doing great 100-day projects, from hip hop moves, to musical instruments, to languages, to pushups and headstands. There are so many things I can think of… but what to do first???

Here's something slightly shocking … in 100 days we will actually be BACK from Peru. How did that happen? 

In Peru news… two nice things. 

1) I was pretty sure that in a previous adventure, years ago, I had purchased a pair of Gore-Tex trousers. It took some digging -- I had put them with other snow/winter outdoor gear -- but I unearthed not one but TWO pairs of such trousers… and one of them even fit Wil. So we're sorted from a waterproof standpoint for our trip!

2) I've FINALLY started getting organized re: immunizations. We had looked at the CDC.gov site to determine the shots we needed, which (since we're going to the rain forest, too), are:

- Hepatitis A

- Typhoid

- Yellow Fever

- Malaria

Now, yellow fever is the tough one. Only certain pharmacies / doctors are licensed to dispense it… possibly because it has to be kept cold? I have a long list of places who, in theory, stock it… but almost all of them are out of stock. In fact, the only people I have found who have it, are the folks at the King County Health Department. But the problem with going there? You need to pay $110 PER PERSON to meet with the nurse. And then you pay for the vaccine on top of that. Other places, such as Bartells or Pharmaca, charge $50 per person. Oh, and at the Health Department, you have go to during banker's hours, on Monday, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays. So I see that as a last resort. 

Then I discovered Katterman's Pharmacy -- they're open more reasonable hours, AND they don't charge for a "travel consultation" when you can just walk up and tell them that the CDC.gov site says we need A, B, and C… They can even prescribe malaria pills for you -- no trip to the doctor required. So that's pretty amazing. 

So, anyway, yesterday we went to Katterman's, filled out some paperwork, and received our first Hepatitis A shot (we'll have another in 6 months) and picked up the Typhoid tablets -- "a vaccine in a capsule!". (We took tablet 1 this morning, we'll take the additional three on a day off, day on cycle.) We'll go in another time to get our malaria tablets organized, all the while hoping that -- as the pharmaceutical company has said -- the Yellow Fever vaccine shortage will ease in April so that we can get that without paying a $220 premium…

I loved Katterman's, by the way -- it's a proper family pharmacy, with travel supplies and scarves and Easter decorations and a staff who knew most of the customers by name. I only wish it were closer to our place, rather than a 30-minute drive away. (A big challenge: balancing the desire for shopping at independent stores with the desire to not need to drive…) I'd just like to highlight how personal the service felt, how fast and efficient it was -- I'd highly recommend them to anyone in greater Seattle who is planning a trip to a faraway land… or even just folks who need a prescription filled.