So one morning Jeremiah wakes up and tells me that there was a crab in his room the night before. I ask him if he dreamed about crabs and he's insists it was real, so I'm like yeah okay Jeremiah assuming he imagined it. A couple of days later Steve and I are getting ready to go to bed and Steve sees a bat lying in the corner of our bathroom. Steve manages to scoop it into a box and we put it outside. It didn't fly away it just kind of crawled around in circles. A little while later we start thinking maybe that was the crab that Jeremiah saw in his room and I start thinking oh shoot some bats carry rabies. So the next morning we question Jeremiah
me: Jeremiah what color was the crab?
Jeremiah: brown
me: where was the crab?
Jeremiah: crawling on my bed
me: did you touch the crab?
Jeremiah: yeah, I tried to get it off
At this point I'm freaking out a little bit. So we call the doctor who is naturally out of the office for the next 5 days. Next I call the health department and am told that bat bites are so small you can't see any marks and they can be painless so you don't necessarily know you have been bitten. If we had saved the bat they could have tested it, but since we didn't we should talk to our dr about getting rabies vaccines. Over the next two hours I talk to every Dr in town, 4 health department offices, and 2 hospitals and am told that none of them have the vaccine and no one is willing to order it because it is too expensive. I love being told that they are willing to let my children contract a fatal disease because it's just too expensive to prevent it. At this point I'm an emotional wreck so Steve starts calling around and eventually find out that we can get the vaccine if we go to the ER of one of the hospitals that I had already called. Ok, so we go to the ER and the Dr thinks that all of us need the vaccine not just the boys, but they don't have enough for everybody. Long story short after waiting for 5 hours they finally come up with enough drugs for all of us. Can I just say, worst injections ever. There was so much medication that it ended up having to be spread out over 4 different sites. Poor little Jacob flexed his bum so hard that he bent the needle. We all get to go back to the hospital for 3 more injections over the next 2 weeks. Super excited.
A couple hours after we got home Steve found a dead bat outside, so I took it in to the health department the next day and they are sending it off to be tested. Even if it comes back negative, I don't know that I would be willing to stop the injections because I can't guarantee it is the same bat. Still, I would feel a whole lot better if it doesn't have rabies.
