This post is mainly about bats, rabies and humanity. It's a long post, but what do you got going on?
Where to start? We’ve been under a kind of stress like you wouldn’t believe. Honest to God. It goes back to the bats. Last Tuesday night, the/a bat was flying through our house, again. I woke up at about 4 a.m. to the noise of it hitting the walls. When my eyes adjusted, I could see it flying around the ceiling above our bed. I watched it until it left the room. It went downstairs and I followed. I grabbed the broom, opened the back door and then it was gone. Whew...
The following night it returned at the same bat time, same bat channel. It wasn’t leaving our room this time, so I ordered my wife to stay put, then I army crawled out of bed and fetched my trusted butterfly net. While I left the room the bat grazed my wife’s head. EEK! I returned, caught the bat and released it outside in under five minutes. I’ve become quite the Turtleman. GIT YA SOME! (I read that Turtleman died recently which saddens me. He was a character.)
The next morning I called up animal control. FYI, if you tell anyone you are dealing with something such as bats the go-to advice is nearly almost always, ‘I’d call animal control and have them deal with it.’ What I’ve learned through this ordeal is that they don’t want to deal with it, if you sound capable. They’re busy helping incapables. The animal control guy asked me if the bat was flying normal so I shared my observations and he suggested it was healthy, not rabid. He figured it was a pup and that it was just confused and that is why it kept getting inside. Instead of leaving it at that, I went to the Internet, because it’s 2019 and I’m an incapable idiot.
I began searching how to deal with bats and I began calling experts and this is where my fear of rabies went off the rails. The only experience I have ever had with rabies is television, movies (I remember, for some reason, we watched Old Yeller in second grade, that was really fucked up) and Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Rant. I think the character in that book seeks out rabid animals to bite him. MAXIMUM EXTREME! Anyway, some experts told me to ‘stay calm, everything is cool, man’ vs. other experts who told me, ‘you better get the vaccine now or you are going to fucking die, man.’ Also, I learned nobody wants to work in Ottawa, IL because I’m still waiting for help with our bat eviction.
I visited the Center for Disease Control website and they advise that if you’ve woken up to a bat in your bedroom, then you should assume you’ve been bitten and it’s imperative that you get the vaccine. In fact, small brown bats, the kind in our home, don’t leave bite marks. Seriously? Do I really need to get the vaccine? I let it go another day, did some more Google searches and then on Friday the fear grew so much that I called the animal control guy again and he tried to talk me off the ledge. This time he told me if the bat is in the house again that I should capture it and bring it in to have it tested. “The way I see it is that it’s open season once it is in your living space,” he said. I thought about getting badminton rackets for every room in the house for protection. He also gave me the number to the county health department. I called and left a message at the health department that was never returned that afternoon. Good thing I wasn’t freaking the F.., wait, I was. That night my wife and I were so worried that we constructed our camping tent in the living room.
Skip the backyard camping and camp in the living room. All the millennials are doing it!
Saturday morning my wife said she thought she heard the bat(s) in the wall while we were indoor camping. GODDAMN. This was a nightmare. Should we just go to the emergency room or what? We called multiple doctors asking for their advice as well as trying to find out what our out-of-pocket expenses would be. I figure a business knows what the cost of their services are but our healthcare system is so convoluted and the nurses answering the phone think you are insane if you are price shopping a life-saving rabies vaccine. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you’re insane if you don’t have a visible bite, but still want a rabies vaccine. The fear was consuming me. I started believing that I NEEDED the vaccine and while we are at it, I probably need an assault rifle... why stop there? Will I really be put on a government list if I check out The Anarchist Cookbook from the library?
That night I went down to the basement at about 6 p.m. and I saw a shadow. It was another bat. For Chrissakes! This can’t be happening! I captured the bat and put it into a container to have tested on Monday.
It was now Sunday. Should we get the vaccine? If you've been bit by a dog thought to possibly have rabies, the dog will be quarantined for ten days. If the dog doesn’t show any symptoms, you are safe. Symptoms from bat rabies exposure include bite marks, numbness, tingling and neck pain, none of which any of us had, except me who has the CRPS leg with the constant pain, numbness, tingling and that neck pain that I can’t shake completely, but I had no visible bite marks. We had waited five days so far. It felt like waves of fear hitting us. Just when I felt better a sense of dread would overwhelm me. I even broke down a few times, because I could never live with myself if anything happened to our kid. I felt like I was failing. Every time I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way that thing bit any of us. I’d have known. The reason why I awoke to the bat in the room was because of my insomnia. I am sure I could hear a pin drop after a couple hours of sleep.’ But I got to a point where I didn’t want anything terrible to happen, so we decided to get the vaccine Monday.
Just so you know, if you think you have been exposed to rabies, just go to the ER. The ER costs our family $1k per person each visit compared to an office visit, which is about $40. However, for some fucked up reason, doctors won’t prescribe you the vaccine. Need opioids? NO PROBLEM! FORM A CUP WITH YOUR HANDS TO CATCH THEM! Life-saving vaccine? NOT ON MY WATCH, FOOL! Five ounces of marijuana a month? COME ON DOWN AND LET'S GET HIGH! I called three of my doctors and none of them helped me. One gave me a bullshit reason, “you need blood testing in order to-.” I cut the nurse off and said, “FALSE! I’m sure I know more about rabies now than probably 95% of the population. All I need is to be weighed and I need the correct dosage for my weight.” It didn’t help. I tried to tell her that I don’t want to pay $960 more for no good reason. It didn’t matter. Go healthcare! USA! USA! So, we just got into the car and headed to the ER.
At the ER we were put into a room together to have our insurance and medical history taken. Next, our vitals were recorded and we were weighed so we would receive the correct dosage. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Our daughter volunteered to get the injections first and she took it like a champ. One in the arm and one in the leg. She said the leg felt weird. The nurses told my wife and I that we were getting three shots. One in the arm and one in each leg. Gulp, not the bad leg. My wife and I received the shots simultaneously. The arm was fine. My wife howled after the first injection in her leg. It was definitely uncomfortable and that was my good leg. My second leg injection was going into CRPS leg and I was really nervous. I explained my whole damaged sciatic nerve issue and the nurse looked confused, so I just said go for it, wherever you need to do it, do it. Apparently the DRG stimulator is doing a great job because I didn’t feel nearly as much discomfort as I did in my good leg. Also, I'd like to add that the rabies vaccine is nowhere near as painful as needling, so don't worry if you ever need to get the vaccine.
It's now been a day later and it feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders. I dropped off the bat yesterday morning, as well as a second that I caught later that afternoon. We will receive the results in about a week. I really don’t think there are any more bats in our attic or anywhere in our home. I also don’t think they were rabid, but I didn’t want to risk anything happening to any of us, especially our kid. After my wife talked to another expert, I’m confident that those were the only two bats because the females raise their pups until mid-August and then the pups begin to learn how to fly and hunt on their own. Also, I never saw more than two roosting in the attic at one time. There wasn’t much guano at all. If I didn't know it was bats I would've guessed it was mice. However, some of the other experts have told me there’s a goddamn colony and I probably need to burn down the house if I want to survive and save humanity. All that’s left now is three more injections for each of us. I still need to find an expert that’ll help seal up the cracks near the roofline and not try to make me believe that our home will be ground zero for the real 28 Days rage virus.
Now, it’s time to pick some fights with rabid wildlife since I’m vaccinated. LIVE ACTION!
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