The Rabies Story

For those of you who missed it the first time around, here is the rabies story.

So there is a homeless guy we'll call 'Oscar' who lives on my front porch part-time. (If he lived there all the time he technically wouldn't be homeless, right?) Oscar is French, generally harmless and, when he is sober, is almost lucid. He gets along with women pretty well, but is somewhat less tolerant of men. For example, one time my friend Steven replied, "Oh yeah?" rather innocuously to something Oscar said. Apparently this was highly offensive to Oscar who gave Steven quite a tongue lashing about respect. So my basic plan with Oscar is to keep him happy. Smile, nod, and go along with whatever he might say, even though I usually don't understand him.

Sometimes I'll see Oscar daily, then he'll disappear for weeks or months. Once, after being gone for a few months I saw him on the porch again. "Oscar! I haven't seen you in ages! Where have you been?" I asked. "Oh," he replied in his gravelly French accent, "I've been in the suburbs. I stay with my girlfriend out there. I can't take the city anymore. It's too dirty here. Trash everywhere. And you know what?" "What Oscar?" "There are too many crazy people around here. I can't take it anymore." Two things in this conversation struck me. 1) How sad has my life gotten that Oscar can find love and I can't? 2) Oscar is complaining about the crazy people? Hmmm.

Anyway, this past January I was walking to school when I saw Oscar with a dog about a block from my place. "Oscar, is this your dog? I've never seen him before," I say. "Yeah, I found her in the street. Pet her," Oscar tells me. Okay, in retrospect, I know that following Oscar's directions doesn't sound bright. But I've never had a run-in with a dog before, and the only rule that comes to mind at the moment is, "Keep Oscar happy, go along with it." Plus, there is the fact that my entire life I have been obedient to a fault.

The first example I have of this occurred when I was in the first grade. The rules were specific, you do not move, talk to your neighbor, or in any other way divert your focus when it is time to pledge allegiance to the flag. Unfortunately, I was not feeling well one day and got sick. During the pledge. So, I stood at my desk, with my hand over my heart, and threw up on the back of the shoes of the kid in front of me. (He never forgot this, reminding me several times throughout the rest of the school year that I threw up on him. I honestly never understood why he was so upset, in my mind it wasn't my fault.) My teacher asked me, "Angela, if you were sick, why didn't you run over to the trash can?" I innocently and sincerely told her, "We aren't allowed to move during the pledge." She revised the rules that day. From that point forward students were allowed to leave their desks during the pledge if they should get sick. But I digress.

So, naive, obedient Angela reaches out to pet the little harmless looking yellow dog. Within seconds the bitch (she was female, I'm being accurate) has clamped down onto my fingers and is not letting go. Oscar is completely unfazed by my situation. "Okay, she's mean!" I exclaim and finally manage to yank my hand back. I tell Oscar that I've gotta go now and hurry on my way. Oscar helpfully tells me to have a good day.

As I'm walking, it occurs to me that my fingers really hurt. Eventually I look down and notice I am bleeding. Crap. I hope it doesn't get infected. What is first aid for a dog bite, I wonder. Then my mind starts to replay the conversation. "I found her in the street." What are the odds that the dog was current on her rabies vaccine? Probably not good. But, I'm not panicking yet. I get to work, check my e-mail, get things started for the day, then figure I should call student health and see if they have any advice on dog bite first aid. The girl on the other end of the phone sounds less relaxed though, "How long ago did this happen?" "About an hour and half," I tell her. "How fast can you get here?" she asks. "Um, I guess I can come right now," I say. Great.

At Student Health they set me to work scrubbing my wounds while my doctor Googles rabies. BTW, it doesn't inspire confidence when your doctor Googles your illness. "How did this happen?" the doctor asks me. Moment of shame. Yes, I am the idiot white girl from the suburbs who did what the homeless man told her to do. I tell her the story. She gives me the look I expected. This plays out over again every time a different nurse wanders in. They ask, I explain, the look. I'm beginning to think of changing my answer to, "Because I'm thupid. Still tarded!"

"Well," my doctor says, "it doesn't look like there were many cases of rabies in dogs in Philadelphia last year, so the odds of you getting the disease are low. Then again, if you do get rabies and don't get treated, rabies is always fatal. It's up to you, do you want to be treated?"

Honestly, there was a part of me that though, eh, what are the odds? Then I thought about how the conversation would go the next time I talk to my mom and inform her that I chose not to be protected against a fatal but preventable disease. I tell the doctor this. "Well, you don't have to tell her,' she says. True. But now I start thinking about Murphy's law. I'm thinking, if I don't get treated, I will most definitely get the disease. And then I will wind up breaking one of the few rules I live by, "Don't die a stupid death." It's not that I am afraid of dying. I just don't want everyone as my funeral thinking, "What kind of idiot gets sucked out by a rip tide/doesn't leave a house full of toxic and flammable fumes/ gets back in the shower after passing out in it once already?" (These are all scenarios that have invoked the Don't-die-a-stupid-death rule before.)

So, for the sake of preserving my reputation after death, I chose to be treated. The several mils of interferon gamma in the finger hurt like hell, but the vaccine shots (which they now administer in the arm) weren't so bad. So, I'm happy to say that I have not contracted or died of rabies, yet. And I have a new rule to live by, "Don't pet dogs, especially those owned by homeless people." I'm making an exception for Alfie though.