After I wrote about my bat encounter, a handful of people (some from here & at work) told me that I could have been bitten while asleep. At first I thought they were overly cautious, maybe slightly hysterical? That was until.....
Two days later; I discovered two very small round scabs on my forehead. Because of my psoriasis, my skin gets dry and I sometimes pick. Normally I would have thought nothing of those scabs (that happened to resemble puncture marks from the movie "Dracula"), but now I stood there staring at them in the mirror, wondering.... "What if?" After showing my Mom and sister for their opinions, (and basically having them lovingly laugh at me), my Mom suggested I go to the Dr. to have the mark checked out.
Feeling kind of foolish, I went to the Dr's and told her my story. After she examined my "bite mark" she had good news and bad news.
The good news: She didn't think it was a bite.
The bad news: She strongly suggested that the kids and I get vaccinated for rabies.
The reasoning? Because we were all sleeping and woke up with the bat in flight above our heads, we can't be sure of exposure/contact. I didn't know this (and should have), but no bite is needed to contract rabies. While flying over our heads the bat's saliva could have dripped down on a scratch or mucous membranes (our eyes, opened mouths while sleeping etc). If the bat was rabid, we could potentially become infected. There is also the possibility that being disoriented from being in the house, the bat could have landed on us without us knowing. If it scratched us, we could become infected with the virus.
Still unsure if a vaccination was necessary, the Dr. gave me information and stats on people who contracted rabies. There was a percentage of those people who only remembered waking up in a room with a bat, no physical contact, not bitten. Although the Dr. admitted that our chances for infection were slim from the encounter; in her opinion "slim" was not good enough when talking about a virus that kills almost 100% of the time.
Sooooooooooo.... Monday night my two babies started the rabies vaccination series at the pedi out-patient unit at the hospital. They got 4 shots each, one on each arm and leg. Sammi is my freakin' hero. She didn't cry and the injections were big intramuscular ones. She only flinched a little on the last one. Mikey cried and it broke my heart....
Because my Dr's office did not have the vaccine on hand, I went to the ER the next morning for my first dose. I receieved 8 shots. It was awful....truly. Worse than my epidurals. If I wasn't afraid of looking silly, I might have cried. Can't believe that Sammi didn't....
Yesterday the kids went for round two. This time only one shot. Sammi remains brave and Mikey asked, "Can I sit on your wap, so I won't be ascared of it...?" Three more weeks, three more shots to go for all of us....
Well, that's the update. We're all sore but will be alright. Oh, and a word of advice. If you ever catch a bat in your house, don't throw it out in the left-over chinese food container for trash pick up the next day. Make sure that it shouldn't be checked out first. I would so kick myself in the butt for not doing that,
.....but I'm too sore, lol.....
