Brain Candy #27 - A Rabid Baseball Fan?

The first story begins with our cats. Those of you who have visited Castle Rock in the past few years have met them. We have four purebred Egyptian Maus. Maus aren't a breed that has had the spunk bred out of them. They're full tilt cats. The wild instinct, the cat equivalent of "The Force", is strong within them. Good for them, but not so good for me, in this case.

About six weeks ago, I woke up a little before 3 am to an unusual occurrence. The cats were playing at the bottom of the bed. That they were in the bed wasn't unusual; they regularly sleep with us. But they sleep at 3 am, or at least have enough consideration not to wake us. Half asleep, I ignored them for a few minutes, but they didn't let up. I decided to break it up and reached down to grab whatever they were playing with. It was cold and soggy. My first thought was that it was a hairball. I grumbled a bit and got up to go to the bathroom to dispose of whatever it was. As I went, the synapses began to work a bit better and I began to realize that I was not going to like what I was about to discover in my hand. I was quite right.

I turned on the light and saw that I was holding a dead bat. It wasn't a complete surprise. We knew we had bats in the attic. As long as they stayed up there, we didn't mind too much. But on one other occasion a few years ago, a bat had somehow found a way into the house. The first time, we got him before the cats did and managed to get him out a window. This time, however, our dear cats had made a kill and brought it to share with us.

We live in Summit County, Ohio. There has been an identified case of bat rabies in the county this year. Doctors don't fool around with such contacts. Until proven otherwise, I had just had contact with a potentially rabid animal. I had not been bitten, but I probably did have its blood on me. I didn't notice; I dropped it right away and started washing. Since the bat was cold, it had been dead for awhile. That was a mixed blessing, since it would reduce the chances for viable rabies viruses, but it would also mean that the brain might have begun to deteriorate. If our cats had been keeping it a secret, it might have been dead for quite awhile. We had to preserve it. After washing extensively, I grabbed it with a plastic bag, wrapped more plastic around it and deposited it in a sealed plastic ice cream carton. Then I put it in the freezer. Not seeing anything else to do until morning, we went back to bed.

I got up the next morning at my usual time and got ready to leave. Not for work, though, I didn't know where I was going yet. While waiting to call the vet and my personal doctor, I did some web cruising, looking for information about rabies. Once it was late enough to call the doctors, I already pretty much knew what would happen in the next few hours. This made a big difference in how I felt about the situation.

The vet said that the cats' vaccinations were recent enough that they were in no danger. That was good; one way of solving the problem of unvaccinated pet contact with a possibly rabid animal is euthenasia. At best, a long, strict quarantine period is required. Neither option is pleasant. When I told the doctor that we had put the bat in the freezer, she said that it would probably be impossible to get a valid test for rabies. The test looks for brain damage which is obscured by freezing. One of the cats, Baksheesh, had a small wound on her face for a few days. We didn't think it too likely that the bat had been around for that long, but I made an appointment to take her and the bat to the vet late Friday afternoon.

Now it was time to look after me. I called my doctor, who immediately recommended that I get in touch with an immunologist; rabies prophylaxis treatment is too rarely needed for a general practitioner to be familiar with. I called a doctor he recommended and was told to go to the City Hospital emergency room immediately; he would meet me there.

I was the healthiest looking person who was there for treatment. It took some time to get through triage, but once I did, they took care of me pretty quickly. Having checked out the treatment regimen on the web, I knew that the painful methods of innoculation were no longer used. This contributed greatly to my peace of mind. I received four human immune serum injections to establish immediate immunity; and the first of five vaccine injections. The vaccine is injected into the arm. It isn't as bad as a tetanus shot. Future injections were scheduled at days 3, 7, 14 and 28.

The trip to the vet was uneventful. She looked at Baksheesh and the bat and we discussed what happened. Wrapping it in all of the plastic insulated the bat enough that she thought it was reasonable to try testing it. She forwarded it to the lab and promised to call me when the results were in.

When I went for my day 3 injection, I discussed the situation with several hospital workers, who were fairly evenly divided between amused and horrified. Although I was nervous about the possibility of rabies, I was also amused. Given all the factors, the chances of me contracting rabies were very low. Still, I didn't want to take any chances.

On day 6, the vet office called and said that the bat test had come back negative. I did take my day 7 shot; three rabies vaccine injections form the basis for lifetime immunity. I will probably need boosters after two years if I'm exposed again, but not the full series.

So where does baseball come in? Our big coup this month was getting tickets for the Indians playoff game 2 (11-1, Indians) and the first World Series game in Cleveland, via www.ticketmaster.com. I had heard how unlikely it was to get tickets this way, and we did have to work for about 45 minutes for the playoff tickets. Surprisingly, we got World Series tickets in about five minutes. It did require that we get up at 8 am on two separate Saturday mornings and they were a bit pricy, but how often can you go to a World Series game? If the Indians don't make it to the Series, we get our money back minus a handling fee. Not a bad deal, if they ship us the tickets. They will be souvenirs, after all.

That's all for this time. Bye.