Brenden got sick almost right after we dropped anchor at Tenacatita. He had a low fever and a rash on his body that just kept getting worse. He was really disappointed, because Fluenta had joined us so, “being sick was seriously impacting his play time.” I asked about doctors in the area on the daily VHF net and got back a few options. We decided to cross the bay over to the town of La Manzanilla, where there is a pharmacy that has a doctor on site. The doctor was very pleasant, but she had no idea what was wrong, and when she took his temperature, it was under his armpit, and she concluded he didn’t have a fever (although I knew already for a fact that he did). She gave us amoxicillin, Benadryl, and some topical medication that you were supposed to dissolve in water. Seems like she was just covering all the bases. I didn’t start him on the amoxicillin right away because I wasn’t convinced it was bacterial. So, we were baseically back to square one, and we had no idea what was wrong with him. Then Brenden piped up and said, “maybe it can be the different soap.” Excuse me, what? What different soap? Brenden filled us in on how he’s been using the soap in the “blue bottle” since he’s been showering in our shower.
OK, mystery solved. Brenden had been washing himself with Head and Shoulders. And when he started getting a rash, we had him shower more frequently and since he kept washing with Head and Shoulders the rash kept getting worse. Once diagnosed, the rash cleared up quickly, and he was back to getting to enjoy his playtime with Fluenta. On the upside, I’m not sure we would have gone to La Manzanilla if we didn’t need to go to the doctor, and it was a very nice little town. It had its share of beachside palapas, and we had some very nice, very reasonable priced fish tacos at Pedro’s (a good recommendation from another cruiser). It seems a favorite pastime of both locals and tourists is flying kites, so there were lots of good kite flying sites as we walked down the beach. There is also a crocodile sanctuary, and the boys went and checked it out, but it was pretty sad and nothing like seeing the crocodiles in the wild when we did the jungle tour near San Blas.
Gresham Family Exodus 