Almost medically cleared. Almost.

I am almost through medical... ALMOST.

After eight weeks of waiting, I received an email from my nurse reviewer yesterday. She said that my file was missing documentation of two labs and that once she gets them that I will be medically cleared. I immediately called my doctor's office and asked them to fax the labs over. Well, there may be a glitch - they may not have ran one of the tests. I'm not sure yet but I'm almost certain that I will need to go back in and get another blood draw (and possibly a series of shots). Here's the situation: I wasn't immunized for Hepatitis B (routine Hep B vaccinations didn't start until 1991, I was born in 1983, and my pediatrician never said to get it). The first of the labs for Hep B reflected that I hadn't been immunized. According to my doctor's assistant, the subsequent lab would show the same thing so they put a notice of that in with my labs and that was what I sent to Peace Corps (even though I said over and over again that I need all of the tests done regardless because "Peace Corps said so"... sigh.) Anyway, my doctor's office faxed the labs they had to my nurse reviewer. I emailed her to confirm she received everything and to see if there were any problems (hoping she would say no and I would be cleared). As seems to be the case with all Peace Corps ventures, I'm still waiting to hear back from her...

This morning I received a MyToolkit update saying there is now a hold on my medical. I'm not sure if that means my file is still in review or if that means I need to go get the additional labs done. I'm assuming it's the latter. I put a call in to my doctor to let her know that I will probably need to come in again. And, as I do more research on the Hep B immunization, I'm also assuming that I will need to get that series done as a precaution considering I will most likely be living in an area with high prevalance of Hep B...

So that is the story for now. I am almost through medical.