future-coasting on a boat through darkest peru
So the river journey's going to be down the Rio Marañón via Zumba (south of Loja), Cacharpoya, Yurimaguas, to the point it joins the Rio Amazonas in Iquitos (brief pause for a jungle trek and dry land), Tabatinga / Leticia, Fonte Boa, Manaus , then possibly Belém.I'm hyper nervous about the river journey through Peru and Brazil. I know it sounds great, but I just can't seem to feel excited about it; just apprehensive about being murdered or contracting hideous diseases while lying prone in my hammock.
Can't wait to get to French Guiana, which sounds much more relaxing.
I got some tablets from my doctor to halt all my periods while I'm away; again, a spasm of fear about a month of river travel. I had a stinking period while going up the Mekhong and don't want to repeat that experience.
Now: following my usual boredom-induced terminal fear of brain tumours (totally unrelated to science or to fact, I convinced myself I had a brain tumour below my knee last week, despite not having a brain there (or in my head, come to that)) I wonder what happens inside if you don't have any periods at all, so I'm scared to use the tablets if I'm NOT on a river.....
An amusing side effect is that they make you deeply nauseous, and give you the squits.
I specified that these tablets were to help make longbus/boat journeys possible to the crap UK doctor ... I don't know what possessed him to assume that diarrhoea and nausea would be entirely manageable in the middle of the jungle with a board and a hole to poo in.....
I'm reckoning that's a month in a hammock on a boat.
- I bought a hammock that's European sized - long AND wide - but I'm buggered if I know anything about how to put a hammock up.
- I have a mozzie net, but I'm buggered if I know anything about how to not knock it down in the night. (And I've seen plenty people bitten through a hammock before, if the mozzies are big enough and fierce enough.)
- I have enough spanish to negotiate boat deals (which will be a necessity at each city along the way). But I'm buggered if I know anything about boats other than that they always have cockroaches, they always have shit bogs, and that riverbanks are boring as hell after the first hour.
But right now, it's akin to staring at a vial of a medicine I know will give me serious squits.
posted by Lectrice at lunes, octubre 23, 2006
3 Advice:
I've heard about injuries (eg below the knee) being mainly in the head of the suffering person. The other way round is less common I think.
If you don't have any periods for a while nothing much happens. I think you have a slightly increased cancer risk and over time it can also affect your bone density (similar to the effect of starting the menopause). But these are related to your oestrogen levels so if you've achieved amenorrhea with pills then your GP should have provided pills to balance your oestrogen and counter these effects. Unless they're actively trying to conceive women are often prescribed the pill when they have amenorrhea in order to restore oestrogen. I've survived 2 x 6 month absences in the last 12 years. I can't guarantee no brain tumour beneath the knee as a result of no periods but I hope this reassures you that it is unlikely. XX
Key words being "should have". No he just sent me for a blood test to check why my periods are so heavy I run through max size protection inside AND out, AND jeans, tights, towel AND a seat in 20 minutes flat. When the blood test came back, they sent me a letter saying there was a problem. I stopped in on the way to the airport, and they said that wasn't the sort of letter that gets sent for "serious" problems, but wouldn't tell me anything else.
Not a great fan of the NHS anymore. But thanks, good to know I'm not destroying anything; the ability to reproduce is not required, but the ability to avoid increased cancer risk is extremely desirable.
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