More battiness

This whole bat thing just keeps on going. I did some research online today and according to the CDC anyone that wakes up with a bat in their room (it doesn't even specify whether the bat lands on your head) should get vaccinated for rabies. This was not what I wanted to see, but I decided to go along with it since rabies is rather fatal.

So I called the university health services weekend number and the nice doctor on call told me that I should go immediately to the emergency room because they are the only ones sure to have the vaccine and be open on a Sunday. So I went, after I had finished watching today's stage of the Tour, and began my 4 hour journey through the Strong Memorial Emergency Department. Each time I told someone I was there for a rabies shot because a bat landed on my head the look they gave me was slightly more incredulous.

After being shuttled from waiting room to waiting room, listening to an elderly German couple reminisce about Heidelberg, and getting my scalp inspected for bite marks by a nice physician's assistant, I finally got into a real exam room. A pair of nurses came in looking incredibly apologetic and carrying a handful of syringes. They explained that I was going to be given a rabies vaccine, the first in a series spread over the next 15 days, and some immunoglobulin. Unfortunately, the immunoglobulin had to be split into 5 separate shots because you can only give a certain amount in each intramuscular injection. And because I was going to get so many shots, they wanted to put them into the largest muscle possible. That meant that I got a grand total of six shots in the butt today. They stood on either side of me doing simultaneous injections, so now I have two bruised areas with hard lumps of fluid under them. The lumps have been slowly going down over the course of the day, but it still feels pretty bruised.

Tomorrow I can expect a call from the Monroe County Health Department (they reported the whole bat incident to the health department) to schedule a time and place for my remaining injections. Luckily those ones will just be for rabies, no more immunoglobulin. I don't know how that will work with me going to the wedding next weekend, but I guess that will be figured out tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself and waiting out the rain so I could go grocery shopping. I managed to get to the store in dry weather, but on the way home was caught in a truly torrential downpour. My groceries survived mostly unscathed, but there was not a single dry spot on me. All my clothes are now hanging in the bathroom and I hope my backpack dries out before tomorrow.