I have Crohn’s Disease. I’ve been hospitalized twice in two different cities that are not where I’m living, so tracking down my medical records has always been an issue.

I’m on the right medication now, and I haven’t had any issues for over a year, but the lack of warning symptoms always worries me that I could have a flare up any time, any place.

So far Haiti I made a digital dog tag. Basically it’s a USB drive with emergency information, medical records, and other important data.

Here’s what’s on it:

• Emergency Text File – This file, named !Emergency so it stays at the top, has all my personal information (full legal name, date of birth, current address), illnesses I have, medications I’m on, and a few emergency contacts with “In case of emergency, contact” in a few different languages. I also have a printed copy.
• Passport Image – A scan of my passport
• Medical Records – I asked my doctor’s office to make me a copy of everything they have. I ran it all through my Canon Pixma all-in-one (much cheaper than a ScanSnap) and saved it as one big PDF.

I like to play worst case scenarios in my mind, and of course the obvious one is what happens if I lose the drive or it gets stolen. Identity security versus medical safety.

I decided to take the risk and not password protect my records because I’d rather be a healthy victim of identity theft than something worse.

I’ve put the drive on a metal chain which I’ll wear around my neck, so it should be very secure.

Any ideas for anything else that should go on the drive?

I’m leaving early tomorrow morning. Follow me to see how things go.

Photo by bruckerrib

Since I found out I’m going to Haiti this Saturday about a week ago, I’ve had to fast track learning everything I need to know for traveling to a third world country.

Here are some resources I found ranging from travel sites to recommended vaccines to common phrases.

US Department of State

The US Department of State has an international travel section with information on every country, as well as travel advisories. There’s also a section to register your trip.

I have no idea what the internet situation will be where I’m staying, so it would be nice if they had an SMS alert option. But this is still a good place to start and get a basic rundown of what you need to do when traveling.

CDC Traveler’s Health / MD Travel Health

Since I’m not going with a group, I had to find out what vaccines I needed myself. These two sites had a great rundown on what diseases I might encounter and what I should be vaccinated against, as well as health precautions while I’m there (don’t drink the water).

Getting Vaccinated

This was actually pretty tricky and really depends on each county. The best thing to do would be to ask your doctor where you can get vaccinated. I don’t have a primary care doctor, but I had heard the Department of Health in my county administered travel vaccines for free. However, when I called them they said that was one of the first things to get cut this year.

I eventually found a travel clinic that had everything in stock. I already had about half the vaccines needed due to all the college requirements, so I only needed Hepatitis A and Typhoid. Insurance usually doesn’t cover this, so they don’t bother checking, so I had to pay in full ($266) and try to get reimbursed later. They also gave me a prescription for anti-malaria drugs.

Country Background

When I found out I was going to Haiti the first thing I did was turn to Wikipedia. The great thing about country profiles is you can get a good gist of everything quickly and then have the option to read further into the more detailed articles about the country.

I’ve also been reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and watched The Agronomist, both good primers to the history of Haiti. Look for recommended books and movies in articles or blog posts.

Language

I’ve traveled to other countries before and always managed to get by with English, but I always wished I knew at least a little bit of the native language to make things easier and not be the lame American.

So this time I’m trying to learn as many Creole phrases as I can in a week. Since Creole is not the most popular of languages, there aren’t that many resources for it.

I’m a big fan of Pimsleur, so I got the basic Creole course which I’ll listen to on my 7 hour drive to the airport. If you happen to be interested in Creole specific sites with phrases, the best ones I found is this PDF from Hands on Disaster Response and Traveling Haiti.

I’ve converted the phrases to flash cards to memorize. I’ve also researched phrases specific to what I’m doing and most likely need, such as, “Can I take your picture?”

Remember to follow me as I go around Haiti.

Photo by MARK EDWARDS

Yep, this Saturday I’m flying from Ft. Lauderdale to Port-au-Prince, and I’ll be there for about 5 days.

I only found out about this last week. I was at a meeting for a service group I’m in, when someone I’ve talked to maybe once before started telling me about how he wants to build a clinic in Haiti and film a documentary about it, but doesn’t know the first thing about filmmaking. So he was wondering if I could go with him on this preliminary trip to help him set up the documentary for the summer.

Enjoying an adventure, I of course said yes (to my family’s dismay). And yes, I’m going to Haiti with an acquaintance. Just goes to prove Malcolm Gladwell and the power of weak ties.

So I’m going to do some filmming, get this documentary set up, and of course (and the biggest personal draw) take lots of pictures. I know this will be an eye opening experience.

I’ll be posting more on preparing for the trip, but all I can say now is my shoulder is pretty sore from the vaccines I got today. And of course I’ll be tweeting while there, so follow me.

Let me know if you have any Haiti/remote traveling tips.