Downside of country living? Rabies woes

So, Merrie got bitten by a cat. We were at someone else’s house, and Merrie went into the barn, where she found a cat. Cats are furry, and despite all my warnings to the contrary, to Merrie’s mind, furry = wants to be pet. The cat sat still, tolerating the petting for a while. Then, when Merrie didn’t expect it, the cat sank its teeth into her skin.

It was a hard bite, the kind that leaves deep marks, though it didn’t appear to break skin. Maybe one puncture. But still small enough that it didn’t really bleed, or barely. So…no big deal. Right?

Still, to be safe, I asked my friend if the cat was up to date on its shots. “I think so,” she said. “It’s a neighbor’s. We just took it for a spell.”  But she was almost sure it was up to date. Really, positive. Almost positive. She would check.

(You know where this story is going, right?)

Alas, the cat was a year overdue for its rabies vaccine.

Rabies is a bad disease. It’s a viral infection of the brain, always fatal. It causes all sorts of things you’d never want to have happen: paranoia, terror, hallucination, paralysis, panic, delirium. Awful stuff. The name, rabies, is the Latin word for “madness.”

Another thing to know about rabies: once you start to show symptoms, it is always, always, too late. By the time you find out you have it, you’re as good as gone. It’s not a disease to mess around with.

And another: it’s not difficult to transmit. Even a scratch from a rabid animal can do it.

One more: the only way to know for sure if an animal has rabies or not is to euthanize it, then cut its head off and test the brain.

I’ve been told that in these parts, when one is bitten by a bat, the chance of rabies is 6%. Not a guarantee, but high enough that if one so much as finds a bat indoors, either the bat gets tested, or (if you can’t catch the bat), the entire family must get a series of shots that is lengthy, painful, and expensive. Yes, to clarify: that advice is to anyone who merely finds a bat in the house; apparently bat bites can be so small you won’t notice having been bitten.

But what’s the incidence of rabies in barn cats? I had no idea.

Here’s what I did know: rabies = bad. And testing = cutting someone’s animal’s head off.

My friend called later and said, “The owner wants you to know that they’ll do that if you want. They feel really bad.”

So, here was my predicament: I knew that Merrie likely did NOT have rabies. Chances were small that the cat had it in the first place. And even if it did, I wasn’t even sure her skin had been punctured. There was only one place where it kinda’ mighta’ sorta’ coulda’ happened. The “if”s were many, the actual chances low.

On the other hand, it wasn’t a zero chance. And, you know, rabies: it’s bad. BAD. Remember Cujo? Remember when Laura Ingalls was bitten by Jasper, her adopted raccoon? Remember when Atticus Finch had to shoot that dog? Remember poor, poor dear Old Yeller? And this is my Merrie, my wild-haired, funny first-born. I like her. I don’t want her to become rabid.

What followed was a flurry of phone calls – to the vet, to the physician, to each other. Back and forth, back and forth. Online reading. Left messages. More conversation. Many sentences that sound like this. “I mean, it’s probably okay. But…I don’t know….if it weren’t rabies…”

It was the weekend, so when I called the pediatrician, I got an answering service, and the conversation with the on-call nurse went something like this:

Her: “Well, if the cat is up to date on its shots…”

Me: “No, that’s what I’m saying. The cat’s not up to date.”

“Right. Okay, but still, it’s unlikely that a house cat would ever have contact with any rabid animals.”

“It’s not a house cat. It’s an outdoor cat.”

“Oh. Wait. The cat goes outdoors?”

“Yes, it’s a barn cat. It lives outdoors.”

“It lives in a barn?”

I refrained from saying what I was thinking, which was, Wow, you’re not from around here, are you?

“Ohhh,” said the nurse, refraining from what she was probably thinking, which was Wow, where do you people live, anyway? Who still has barns? And why are you people letting poor kitty wander around them?

(the answer, by the way, is ‘rodents,’ which can be a big deal in a farm community).

She passed the message on to the pediatrician, whose own family has barns. Thankfully, this doctor was less confused, more quick to understand the situation. As expected, she said, “we can’t play around with this disease.”

But she also said this: we can either test the animal in that extremely gruesome manner OR we can quarantine and watch the cat for ten days. If in ten days, the animal shows no behavior changes — no disorientation, unusual aggression or lethargy, foaming at the mouth, stumbling, etc. etc. — we’re in the clear. If it does show wacky symptoms, then we euthanize, test.

So this is where we stand. We wait. Not anxiously, but perhaps ever-so-slightly warily, with a single eyebrow raised.  You’re still okay, cat, aren’t you?

Advice to all children, everywhere: just because it’s furry doesn’t mean you should pet it.

Advice to all animals-owners, everywhere: get your pets vaccinated, lest your animal bite someone and then, god forbid, you have to cut its head off, even if you’re reasonably sure that it’s probably not rabid.

Advice to all others, anywhere: if you really want the pee scared out of you, listen to Act One of this episode from This American Life about an attack by a rabid raccoon.  You will never, ever go in your garage again. I swear.

Do city folk worry about rabies? Or is this one of the downsides of country livin’? Just curious.