I started off the day hurling off the side of a balloon onto Bagan. Luckily, the mucus only extracted from my body when we were fairly close to the ground, and not onto the town where all the locals live. Next, were the devilish electronic pieces of metal AKA ebikes. We all cruised up to old Bagan to see all the temples. Wescott dropped and crashed his bike a couple of times, but other than that, we were safely cruising through the ancient city, until it happened. While heading over back to our hotel my bike had found itself in deep sand. My bike span out of control, and down went Otto. I landed on the sand ground, along with my bike. My foot wound up wedged under the bike, and my face planted in the sand. My family quickly lifted the bike up and helped me up. At the time I had no recognition that any serious damage had been done to my leg, so I hopped right back on my bike and twisted the accelerator and continued riding.

Mom and dad stopped ahead to take pictures, so I simply rolled up my pant leg to see what was going on with my knee, and that was when I knew something was wrong. I yelled over to my mom and dad to come over, but they rejected and continued to snap away. I yelled again, and finally mom came over to see what was happening. I showed her my leg and she called over my dad as well. My knee had swollen to the size of a grapefruit. Here is a photo of my horrendous knee, viewer discretion is advised.

Well there you have it, my mystical day ended with me watching sunset on the top of a temple thanks to Yve and Dad for practically carrying me up there.

We were on our way to Chaing Mai as I was wheeled through the airport by some guy who was probably thinking: this guy is probably faking. I mean just a minute ago he was riding on one of their pieces of luggage. 

Bangkok Airlines took really good care of me!

When we made it to Chaing Mai, I was supplied with some crutches. We consulted with PopPop on what our next battle phase would be, and he recommended that we go to the hospital. Dad, Jones and I went to a hospital that was recommended for people who don’t want to have the more adventurous international hospital experience.  I had an X-Ray done, and luckily no bones were broken. I got an MRI done as well that did have some results. There is a very small tear in my ACL, and the doctor said it would be back to normal in about a month. The doctor aspirated my knee as Jones shot out questions and comments to my dad as he watched.

I am currently sitting in Yangshuo, China (three weeks later) and my knee isn’t horrendous any more. I am able to swim, walk a limited distance without crutches, but sadly, I cannot rock climb.

My knee hasn’t stopped me from partaking in all the great massages, including fish massage!

 P.S. PARENTS NOTE:  The doctors visit, x-ray, MRI, aspiration and crutches totaled $400 including all hospital expenses.  Perhaps we should all retire to Chiang Mai

There were supposed to be flamingo dancers and a group of Japanese tourists that say “Happy Birthday Michael.” But I spaced out and forgot to put them in the video. Just imagine it.

I am trning into a shirk. I have 2 rows of teeth. I have 1 tooth behind my bottom teeth. I kan feel another growing next to it.

See my second row?

If you are going to go on a trip of this magnitude, you should definitely check your health plan to see if preventative vaccines are covered.  Some are and some aren’t and the ones that aren’t can be incredibly pricey.  Regardless, we are SET and hope to be able to stave off many unwanted illnesses as a result!

Two great things came out of our 6 week odyssey of getting shots!  First, Tucker and Jones have become shot NINJAS!  They are not intimidated by needles anymore!  Tuck would volunteer first to get every shot and we joked as the needle went in whispering “I LIKE IT!  Give me more!”

Most importantly, we made some great new friends at the Travel Clinic at Rite-Aid in Eastgate Bellevue!  The team there is AWESOME!  Dr. Ashwini N.G and her team helped us learn about every country, the diseases we may be exposed to and what every vaccine was for!  I think she got a kick out of us too because she is pregnant with twins and saw a glimpse of daily life with two crazy-babies!

Thank you Dr. Ash and the whole team at Rite-Aid for making 58 shots FUN!

Dr. Ash and the whole Sharples gang after our last shots! Lollipops are not shown but were a key contributor to the success :)

With 5 kids, Cliff and I operate on the assumption that we will make at least one trip to the emergency room per year, which has proved to be a fairly accurate calculation over the last 15 years. With that in mind, what do we do about medical preparedness for the trip around the world? The hope is that we are prepared for all medical situations…everything from a bug bite to broken arm…and that we don’t need to use ANYTHING!

With that in mind, I embarked on 5 key projects:
1) Figuring out medical coverage while we are away
2) Figuring out travel/evacuation medical in case of a medical emergency
3) Shots
4) First Aid Kit
5) Getting everyone to the dentist and doctor for updated check ups before we leave

For medical coverage, Cliff and I are lucky in that we can opt into Cobra from our previous employers. Check! One thing on the list is figured out!

For evacuation coverage, we consulted the “Roaming Jones,”  (http://www.roamingjones.com/) our buddies who left with their 4 kids on a similar trip yesterday and therefore had to figure everything out before us. They told us about Global Rescue. http://www.globalrescue.com/ Thank you Roaming Jones! You guys are rock stars!!! Check! This one is figured out!

For shots, we enlisted the Travel Clinic at Rite-Aid in Bellevue. They are AWESOME! They looked at our itinerary and helped us figure out exactly what we needed. We haven’t been in to get the shots yet, but we are headed there tomorrow!

Getting everyone to the dentist and doctor was easy….everyone except Cliff who has been a big procrastinator because he will turn 50 on the trip around the world so you know what that means….colon cancer screening which is not fun. But good news is, he will get it over with and can enjoy his 50th, worry-free on the Great Wall of China

Me? I went through a battery of tests and ended up getting my gall bladder out because my doctor was worried I would have a gall bladder attack on a remote island off the coast of Africa….one less organ to worry about.

As for the first aid kit, I spent 2 hours at Rite-Aid with the pharmacist and several shopping lists I gathered from doctors, family (who is also doctors,) other families who have gone around the world as well as Cliff’s and my memories of past International trips. I tried to minimize what we will bring because you really CAN buy most things abroad. Here are the things I did decide we needed to have: antibiotic ointment, band-aids, steri-strips, moleskin, Visine, Benedryl, aspirin, Tylenol, Z-Paks for each person, an ace bandage, Claritin, sunblock and an EpiPen….we will probably never use some of it and run out of others but we can always enlist my parents to bring new supplies to Morocco