Let me start of this post be putting everyone of you at ease- I don't have rabies... or, at least, I seriously doubt it. However, after an altercation with a cat the other day, my Thai teacher friends thought that I might. I should back up a little bit...
In my head, buying a series of rabies treatment (the key word here being "treatment" and not "vaccine") is like buying a wedding dress before you're even engaged. However, I concede that the outcomes are rather different. One situation turns out like; "Oh, now I'm 95 and I've never needed that wedding dress but at least it will fit my favorite niece perfectly and the alterations to make it more 2076 appropriate are super inexpensive!" and the other one is, well, paralysis and death. Or mania and death. Rabies is not a pretty thing to die from, I'm told.
The other morning it had become clear to us that the cat we heard in the office on Saturday at English camp had remained there as a prisoner of its own fear; choosing to stay behind cabinets in an attempt to avoid human interaction come starvation or high water. It was a kitten, and we really thought that the most humane thing to do was to trap it and get it out so that it could find it's family or at least some food. It fell to me, as the least intimidated by fangs and claws to snatch it up and dump it out the window (we're on the first floor). Well, cat fought back and I came out of the row with several new holes all over my hands. My finger was practically dripping blood from a bite. Although the Thai ladies I work with surrounded me and took turns applying their favorite form of antiseptic or cream, it came to the attention of our boss, who demanded I go to the hospital to, as far as I understood, ward off rabies.
Rabies is grisly but it's also confusing and fickle. The thing is, you can't really tell you have rabies until symptoms come on 4-12 weeks after the bite and by then, well, it'll be too late. Your best bet is checking up on the animal that did the biting to make sure it doesn't drop dead of unexplained causes or start foaming at the mouth (something that my friend promised me she would watch out for since I'll be gone before that happens), because otherwise you're out $600. And, yes, it's always better to take care of yourself but rabies is quite uncommon as well. I guess in the long run, you'd much rather spend money unnecessarily than die before your time, I get that, but when you include the odds in that equation, it just seems silly to freak out right away.
Let me be clear, I held the animal in my hands before directing her to her exit and there were no signs that the cat was suffering from anything other than primal fear. There is a point to this story and it is not to admit to hypochondria or to share the unfortunate and frightening process of dying of rabies. I learned something very interesting that day and confirmed something that I have been convinced of for a while.
When my friend drove me to the hospital, I knew that even if I had just been bitten by a cat dripping with a deadly zoonotic virus, this trip would be useless. Peace Corps hooked me up with the vaccine and anyway, there would be nothing to do in the immediate future either way. However, I know how dirty cats' mouths are; in fact, between a human, dog and a cat, Garfield is much more likely to drop the F bomb than either Marmaduke or Charlie Brown. Of course, when I say "dirty" I'm referring to the bacteria that happily take up residence at the corner of Cat Saliva and Scratchy Tongue. That being said, I wanted to take advantage of my obligated trip to the hospital.
"They won't be able to check me for rabies anyway," I tried to explain. "But, I would like to make sure that I get advice on avoiding/treating some sort of bacterial infection. Can you tell them that?"
As far as Thai teachers go, I have been so lucky! You saw pictures of me and Rabbit 2 weekends ago, and I love the other ladies I work with almost as much. However, my friend Ann is not a certified medical interpreter by any means and let me just say that although our trip to the hospital seemed fruitless at the time, I look back and realize that I was once again getting the rare chance to experience the helplessness that comes from requiring an interpreter at a critical moment such as a doctor's visit. When I was with Ann, the doctor talked, and Ann talked and I was told to lift my bandaged finger once, but nothing was every once explained to or interpreted for me. In fact, I didn't even feel like I was a physical entity in the room and as far as I could tell, I could have been asked to show off my nail polish instead of my punctured digit. It was a little bizarre and if there had been something seriously wrong I would have been really freaked.
When we left I was still being kept entirely in the dark and she was shaking her head, "The shots were too expensive." Lesson number 2 on what not to do when interpreting for someone- make medical decisions for them! This seems like a no-brainer to me, but how did she know that I wasn't prepared to buy that wedding dress without the ring? Furthermore, I asked her about what had been said about the possibility of a bacterial infection and she didn't even seem to know what I was talking about. Whelp. We tried.
We first noticed the cat when we came to school over the weekend to participate in an English camp. I had several games prepared but didn't actually get to use many of them. Also, I felt as though my games were entirely devoid of any "English" aspect. Oh well. The kids seemed to really enjoying heading and catching soccer balls. And I did have an English introduction Bingo game! So, I probably did better than I thought.
What I really valued about this past weekend was my chance to spend last-minute time with some of my teacher friends. It was mostly me and Ann on my camp day and I don't even remember having long conversations about much of anything important or deep but somehow our relationship made grand leaps in the hours we spent together on the sidelines of middle school kids learning English. Several times this past week we've made eye contact and left unspoken there is the notion that we will both really miss each other when I leave.
When I leave. Leaving Phrae is now a reality that is little more than 24 hours away. I'll spend the weekend in Bangkok and then catch my flight out on Tuesday morning (which would be Wednesday evening for the North Americans reading my blog). This means that tomorrow is my last day as a teacher. I'm four classes away from hanging up my ruler (what prop would be most appropriate and all-encompassing to represent "teacher"? Pointer stick? Apple? Just, insert teacher word here...)
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