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I do not try to attest to being a vaccination expert.  I did have the back of my head that when traveling you might need to get some additional vaccinations.  I remember getting an entire set of them when I first traveled abroad to Russia in 1996.

Not being an expert, I didn’t know if vaccines wore off (I remembered something about 10 years) or what happens.  First stop: the CDC website for West Bank.

It said we needed routine vaccinations (Tdap, MMR, polio), Hep A and Typhoid (some travelers).  Apparently, Tdap needs to be updated every 10 years but the rest are for life!  Looking over my records, I only needed Polio (no record) and Typhoid.  I had a Tdap vaccine in the hospital when Maggie was born.  Dan wasn’t quite as lucky.  He had to get Hep A, Polio, Tdap and Typhoid.  The kids had to get only a Typhoid shot.  Bonus! Our insurance paid for everything except Typhoid.

The downside to the whole experience is that I couldn’t find a single person who would help me decide which shots to get.  So I just got them all.  Our pediatrician helped us decide for the kids, but by then Dan and I had already gotten our shots.  At the health department, they told us to tell THEM which shots we needed and they would draw them.  We also had to go back 3 times.  The first time, the secretary only put down one shot and the day was over so we couldn’t get back in line.  The second, we got everything except Typhoid because they were out.  On our third try we finally finished.  Now we have vaccination records filed to take to the kid’s school.  One more step towards our trip checked off the list!